A Dragon's Rage: The First War
by Red Dragonette
Summary: After nearly a millennium of slavery, the dragons have broken free and rebelled violently against their human oppressors. Atlas, having lost her sister to the man-made hybrids, goes to take her nieces to a safer place. Kathia, having lost her parents to dragons, goes to take her vicious revenge on them. Aeolus, having lost everything to the humans, seeks worldwide genocide on them.
1. Prologue

Today once flourishing towns and cities now lay in ruins. What could cause the ultimate downfall of the human race you may ask? A horde of dragons angered by years of abuse, slavery, and murder at the hands of their oppressors. This all happened in a world much like our own; a planet called Veleia. As similar as this world seemed to our own there was one big difference. This difference was that dragons were once kind and wise creatures, but now mean and merciless monsters. (For the most part that is.)

The dragons were strong noble creatures; they had the ability to breathe fire and had armor as hard as rocks in the form of scales covering their hides. Back then in the medieval period, they were few in numbers and their existence was unheard of by the humans. Until one day mysterious events have been happening. Farms were getting raided of livestock, some of which were eaten on the ground; precious jewelry was stolen; mines were raided of its gems and rich metallic ores; and earthquakes, forest fires, and weather changes were becoming more common. At first the humans thought it was the work of an evil sorcerer, until one man discovered the dragons and told the others about it. The humans came over and saw these creatures for themselves. Wanting to use the creatures' powers to make the humans' work and chores easier to benefit the economy efficiently, the humans instantly started attacking the dragons, enslaving the ones they catch as pets and slaves, and using the dragons they killed for their scales. The dragons fought back valiantly, but humans won not by force, but by sheer numbers alone.

For a very long time after the downfall of the free dragons the dragons were used as slaves for moving heavy objects, encouraged to work by sharp metal pokers, with a very high voltage of electricity running through it. They are also kept as pets by rich families kept in heavy duty reinforced electrified cages. The dragons had no hope for an easy escape. The dragons were often starved or fed rancid, stale food in small amounts to keep them weak.

As the dragons suffered they kept in contact through telepathic communication. The humans had no idea they were capable of communicating so they couldn't stop them. As the year went by the dragons were slowly biding their time waiting for their powers to return and the perfect moment to strike. Together they devised a flawless spell to aid their escape, and seek their revenge on the humans.

Nearly one-thousand years after the downfall of the free dragons they had perfected the spell. At that very moment, the humans were struggling to rebuild their towns; several natural disasters had weakened the humans. They were low on natural resources and other important items. The dragons took this opportunity to strike; they released their spell, rendering all human-made offensive technology useless. Electrical objects stopped working and locking mechanisms fell to pieces. The once strong, sturdy bars on the dragon cages became weak and rusted. The dragons broke free and attacked the humans starting the war between humans and dragons.

The humans started to revert back to their old technology such as bow n' arrows and swords. Also unbelievably the government has abandoned us too, so don't expect any help from the military. A few select humans who only showed the dragons kindness, and tried to help them are greatly known by most dragons, news travels fast when you can speak telepathically to one another, and they stand a better chance of survival and even a chance of being protected by some dragons. Another thing different from this world and our own world is, it is much bigger, and has much more land covered by forest. As the dragons began their attack, the humans abandoned their towns and cities, to go hide in the forest. There they built camps, trying to build an army to defeat these 'horrible monsters'.


	2. Freedom!

**Chapter 1: Freedom!**

The audience roared with cheers and shouts as they watched the two dragons in the coliseum tear at each other. Atlas, a magi dragoness whose orange scales tinted with a little red, was up against a guardian dragon in the quarter finals of the tournament. She used to be a working slave from the day she and her sister were orphaned &amp; kidnapped as hatchlings and sold into slavery; but ever since her current master's grandfather bought her, she has been trained into a fighting dragon and made to kill other dragons in tournaments for the sake of getting lots of money for her three generations of masters and for the humans' cruel sadistic entertainment. Atlas hated having to kill others of her race like this, but she was left with no choice as her slaver threatened to slay her mint friend, Snively, and then her if she refused to fight. And even without a hostage, the electronic collar around her neck prevented Atlas from using her teleportation magic to escape. It doesn't help that it was also extremely durable to any kind of attacks from dragons, so no counting on herself or anyone to break it off.

Atlas cast a few fireballs at the guardian dragon, who head up the big shield tip of his tail to block all the projectiles. Then she rained down ice needles on her foe, who then used his metallic wings to shield himself from the cold stings of her spell. This move however, was just a trick for Atlas to leap over him and then spin half-way in mid-air so that she can fall on him with her sharp teeth biting down on the back of his neck. The guardian roared in pain and tried to shake and throw off the assailant like a bull in a rodeo show. Atlas fought to keep herself holding onto him as she cast a fire aura spell on herself to further harm the opponent with hot fiery burns. The guardian went for plan B by rearing up and then slamming himself down backwards to body slam the magi. Air was blown out of the dragoness and her backside was throbbing with pain. Plan B had worked as the guardian was released from his foe's clutches. He got up and raised his shield tail to slam down on Atlas's head. The dragoness quickly saw the incoming attack and shielded herself by using her ice magic to create an icy ledge over her. Then she cast ice needles into his face, which stung the guardian's eyes and made them turn painfully cold. He roared and stumbled back blindly like an injured animal. Atlas took the chance to finish him off by going over to him and biting him down on his throat. Fangs pierced the jugular and the metallic taste of blood gushed on her tongue. For the finishing move, she proceeded to shake and tear at his throat until the flesh was torn, leaving a bloody hole on his neck. With the guardian dragon dead, Atlas won the quarterfinal and the crowd cheered in excitement for a good show.

The coliseum guards entered the arena to put a leash on Atlas before escorting her back to her men locked her inside and turned the power on to electrify the watched them open the cages of the other fighting dragons to bring into the next match as she thought with a vengeance, _'Enjoy the show while you can, humans. Because once the Spell is released tonight, my next opponents will be all of you!'_ She couldn't wait to get out and destroy all who have made her suffer over the years.

* * *

The suburban section of the city had been ravaged by a hurricane yesterday and many homes had been damaged during the storm. The most able-bodied slave dragons were being made to clean up the debris and help repair the houses. It was quite a treacherous work for them, given their malnourished state that kept them from rising up against their masters, the Rittevon Inc and those in the neighborhood who let the company borrow their dragons. Even the harsh sunlight did nothing to help ease their suffering. Kathia, daughter of the company president, was there on her internship to oversee the slaves and workmen's activity, making sure none of them went out of place or lazed on the job. One black dragon was very exhausted and felt his legs gave way for him to collapse on the ground. The redhead flogged him with her thorny whip and yelled, **"****Hey you! Don't you dare lie down like a bum. I want to see you work like everyone else. Now get to it!"** The dragon groaned tiredly and forced himself back up to carry away the steel beams. Another overseer nearby whipped him to get the beast going faster, making the slave slip before catching himself. Kathia and the man flogged him a few more times before she saw another exhausted dragon who collapsed. She whipped that one too and scolded him back into moving the debris out of the way.

Now feeling hot and thirsty, the teen went over to the stand to get herself a cold water bottle from the cooler. She went to the deck chair and sat beneath the shade as she drank down a few gulps, adding insult to injury at any slave who saw her, by making them jealous for what she has. Kathia saw a young earth dragoness glancing at her owner, a dark-haired brunette girl who was perched on a bit of tumbled down wall. Snorting in an amused way, the yellow dragoness turned back to her work. She was about to move a small area of debris with her earth-bending magic before she got whipped on her hindquarters by one of the overseers. The brunette let out an angry gasp at seeing her pet get hurt. Kathia smiled in amusement at the girl's worry as she thought, _'She must be another one of those dragon sympathizers. What a bunch of hippies!'_ The Rittevon girl never had a liking for those who fought for the humane rights and freedom of dragons, which were rare in this world. To her, they were just a bunch of ignorant moron who had no idea how much progress that slavery has brought for mankind.

Without dragons and their magic, the humans would have no electricity that came without the need for fossil fuels; no extremely durable leather items that came from the toughest of dragon scales; no magic from the white dragons and other healer types to completely heal severe injuries and cure mental illnesses and all deadly diseases like AIDs, HIVs, and Malaria; no super efficiency to blue-collar works; no waters 100% clean; no quickest and effective ways like mind-reading magic to spot and arrest the most elusive criminals; and no other miracles made from the working and hunting of dragons. Oh what would life without dragons?

Time went on by for hours, as the slaves and workmen cleared up the damage and made repairs to the damaged houses. The humans took an hour of lunch break, during which they fed the dragons with the worst quality food and little water. The work went on until 9 'o clock at night when the workers and slaves went home for the night. By now, the rebuilt buildings were now only in need of closing up holes and the streets became debris-free again, but there was still work to finish up tomorrow as some of the houses were still in need of repairs. Kathia rode in a black limousine driven by her butler, while her slaves were carried in trucks back to her mansion. The other slaves were to be taken to the work shelter at the company building. The black dragon, she whipped earlier, was hesitant to enter his prison. He grunted and leapt forward when one of the handlers jabbed firmly his right thigh with one of the metal rods. Through these rods ran high voltages of electrify that were enough to get the slave into his cage. He collapsed on the filthy floor long enough for the gates to be brunette girl wanted her pet dragoness back, but the slavers had demanded that they keep her pet until the reconstruction was complete. So the owner gave up without a fight.

The Rittevon girl reached home, where the slaves were taken to the backyard shelter into their electric cages and Kathia went to the dining room to eat dinner with her family. **"So how was your day, Kathia? Are the reparations going well?"** asked her mother.

**"Yep! We cleaned up the mess and fixed a few houses. Although, we've ran out of resources to do more repairs. I guess we'll have to order the supplies or get our slaves to mine them,"** replied Kathia.

* * *

Meanwhile, the dragon-fighting tournament has reached the finals. Atlas, the recurring champion of annual tournaments, was up next against a bulky and large challenger. It looks like she was going to be made champion again if the magi killed her last opponent; something she didn't want to happen before the spell. _'Come on, Aeolus. Hurry up and give us the signal!'_ she thought desperately. She wondered when the mastermind behind the big plan was going to let all the world's dragons cast the spell. The guards opened up the cage and took her by the ropes to the arena. There, she came face to face with a bleeding moon dragon. The red patches on his body were really dark; a warning sign that meant the dragon was in his aggressive state in which he'll fight with all his might and fury. Plus there was the fact that bleeding moons have power poison in their tails. Atlas would have to be very careful in this fight if she wanted to survive again to reunite with her escaped family; her sister Flarina, her brother-in-law John, and her nieces, Danielle and Kylie. The spectator began the final match and the two dragons engaged each other in combat. The bleeding moon scratched the magi with his sharp black claws and drew blood. Then he followed with his tail barb lunging towards her, but luckily Atlas moved her head out of the way before she could get struck. The magi burned her opponent with her fire stream spell coursing around his body. The audience yelled cheers at the sight of the burning dragon. Atlas flew up and used her telepathy to ask her sister,_'Flarina, how close are you to the city?'_

_'I think we're almost there. John and I can see it on the horizon. It'll take more minutes until we get to you,'_ replied Flarina.

_'Good. I want you guys to be the first thing I see after I leave this goddamn city. I can't wait to see my nieces you told me about,'_ said Atlas.

_'And they can't wait to see their Aunt Atlas as well,'_ said Flarina.

The bleeding moon dragon, after having put out the flames with his drop and roll, flew up after Atlas. The magi looked back at him and said, _'We'll have to talk later. Right now, I need to take care of one last dragon before he kills me.'_

_'The tournament's not over yet? Oh boy... Well please come out in one piece, sister,'_ Flarina told her.

_'Don't worry, I will,'_ the magi promised before they cut off telepathy. Atlas cast her wind blades spell at the bleeding moon, who dodged each sharp light green blades before he rammed into her with his curvy red horns. The tackle knocked the breath out of the magi and pushed her back a few feet in the air. Then he clamped his jaws onto her neck and bite down on her. Atlas clenched her teeth and shut her eyes in pain before she enveloped her body with the Flame Aura spell to burn the holding foe. The bleeding moon let go after his mouth had received the fiery agony of pain and let out a loud shriek. Atlas tackled her flaming body into him to deal more damage to him. She grabbed onto him and took him down to the ground where she slammed him down on the ground.

The audience pumped their fists in the air and shouted, **"Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!"** That was what the magi was going to do now.

But as she opened her jaws for the killing bite, she heard Aeolus's voice in her head, _'Everyone, the time has come for our freedom! All dragons cast the Spell now!'_

Atlas closed her mouth into a smile and thought, _'Perfect timing! I was afraid I was going to have to kill this guy before the big show.'_

The bleeding moon dragon told her, **"You heard him, it's time we get our revenge on these humans."**

**"I know, no need to remind me,"** the magi replied. Then the two opponents connected their thoughts with the worldwide telepathy to empower the Spell-casters. A white aura surrounded Atlas's body and she cast the Spell into the air. Dragon-oppressing electronics around the world began to shut down permanently and a giant roar outside the coliseum sounded through the city.

The earthquake shook the place and the humans started to panic as they shouted things like **"Earthquake!" "What's going on?!" "What's happening?!"**

The force-field keeping the dragons inside the arena disappeared and enabled the former opponents to began their rebellion against the bloodshed-loving crowd. The bleeding moon flew up towards the northern spectator seats, where slammed his tail down on the humans to crush them and ate a teenage boy who got caught in his snapping jaws. Atlas cast her fire stream spell at the press box and set it on fire. The crew inside started to run away for their lives. Then she impaled her mean owners with her ice spears; she had always wanted to kill them after all the torment and vigorous pressure they put her through. The guards came out to punish the winged beasts with their weapons, consisting of guns and shock-sticks. Two of them tried to shoot the bleeding moon dragon, but the bullets refused to come out of their metal homes. The other guards tried to get their sticks to start electrifying, but it was futile, no matter what. Atlas whipped her head around to see the guards with her glaring eyes and burned them with her fire beam. A teenage boy in a hoodie dropped down into the arena. The magi dragoness walked over to him and bared her teeth in an angry growl at him.

The boy shot up and took a step back as Atlas advanced towards him, but when he spoke his voice betrayed no fear. His voice was soft and calming, as if he was talking to an injured animal. **"You don't want to hurt me. You're mind is just clouded by your anger. Take your leave while you still have your chance."** With that said, the boy raised his hands and waited for her response as his fingers twitched slightly.

Atlas snorted; she was kind of impressed with the boy showing no ounce of fear or hostility in him, but the feeling was hidden beneath her scowling mask. **"And why should I not hurt you?"** she challenged. Not that she planned to attack him anyway as she was above killing those who don't fight back. Sure she destroyed the announcers in the press box, but that was to show a frightening example to the humans watching the show on TV that their reign was neigh and that dragons everywhere were going to rebel against them.

**"Because I have tons of spells that I can use to fight back with. I don't want to have to hurt you with them, that's why I'm telling to leave peacefully,"** answered the boy.

A human that can use magic? He had to be bluffing, because there was no human being, that she know of, that can use magic. But Atlas decided not to press on this issue as she felt it was a waste of her time. **"Hmph, fine! I suppose I can spare you; besides, I got better things to do. Though I won't promise the other guy I fought won't do the same,"** the magi said hinting about the bleeding moon dragon. Now that her magic-suppressing collar was no longer functioning, Atlas had a whole access to her arsenal of spells to use anytime and anywhere without her deceased masters telling her when to use them. She closed her eyes and pictured the place to warp to; the dragon shed where all her fellow slaves were being kept. She had to help them get out of there. Atlas used her teleport spell and warp over there immediately. She disappeared from the coliseum in a flash that exhausted purple clouds.

* * *

The Rittevon's slaves were breaking out of their cages and burning down the guards and watchmen. The family heard the dying screams and ran out of the house to check out what's happening at the shed. **"What's going on there?"** asked Mr. Rittevon as he went to open the door. To his horror, he saw the rebellious slaves killing off his hired soldiers. Angered by this, Mr. Rittevon took out his hand gun and went inside to scold his slaves. **"Hey! What do you blasted scalies think you're doing?! You think you can just start a riot and achieve freedom? I don't think so! I'm going to shoot down one of you to teach you a lesson and make you all learn your places!"** When he squeezed the trigger, nothing came out. **"Eh?"** breathed the company president. No matter how many times he tried to shoot, the bullets would never leave the handgun. **"What's going on here?"**asked Mr. Rittevon. Then a black dragon took the slaver up in his jaws and started eating him.

Mrs. Rittevon and her daughter gasped astoundingly in horror. **"Daddy!"** Kathia shouted.

Her mother took her away as she said to the slaves, **"You monsters! I'll call the dragon control to kill you all for this!"** Then they both ran back to the mansion. Mrs. Rittevon took up the phone and called the dragon control agency, **"Hello? I have a bunch of rioting dragons who have just killed off my servants and ate my husband. I need you men to-"** A scream was heard on the other line as a dragoness's roar sounded on the phone. **"Hello? Is everything all right?"** There was no response. Three dragons burst through the rear walls of the house to make their attack on the Rittevons and their human servants. The people screamed and ran as the beasts blew fires around the room and chased their bipedal prey to eat them. Mrs. Rittevon grabbed her daughter's hand and cried, **"Let's get out of here, Kathia!"** The mother, daughter, and their butler ran outside to the limousine and got in quickly before they could get hurt. **"Drive! Go! Go! Go!"** the mother told the driver. The butler pushed his foot down hard on the gas pedal and sped away.

Kathia observed the scenery through the windows and found out that the dragon rebellion wasn't just happening at her home; there was chaos around the streets and at many other homes where dragons were killing and wrecking havoc. Kathia got frightened as she felt like an apocalypse was happening right now before her very eyes. **"What the heck is going on?!"** she yelled.

**"I don't know, Kathia. But I do hope we can make it out of this place in one piece before-"** her mother said before a piece of another mansion was thrown down into the limo's path. The three humans screamed out loud before the butler pushed down on the brakes, making the vehicle come to an abrupt halt.

**"Oh great, we're stuck. Now what?!"** the paranoid driver asked. Suddenly, a big dragon flew down to the limo and tore off the roof. He picked up the butler and ate the upper part of his body. The women screamed when they saw the horrific fate of the butler.

**"Let's get out, Kathia!"** Mrs. Rittevon cried. The daughter obeyed without any thoughts whatsoever and followed her mother out of into the streets. The Rittevon women ran as hard as they can to make their escape out of the city. Everywhere they went had the same thing happening; it was like the dragons had scaled a widespread riot throughout the whole city and quite possibly the whole world. How did she know this? Because they passed a TV store where there was a news on TV at the display window that spoke about the rampaging dragons in different parts of Rudvich and the rest of the world. **"How the hell did this happened? We had technology, we had weapons, and we had everything we needed to keep those blasted scalies in their place!"** Kathia yelled hysterically.

**"I don't know, Kathia! I guess it was because the world was running out of resource, that we didn't have enough to keep our slaves from going against us! Now be quiet and run!"** Mrs. Rittevon cried. They kept on going, trying to find a place where there was no heavy traffic, so that they can hitch a ride in a vehicle and get out of this dying city quickly.

The Rittevons were almost there to the outskirts of the city. **"We're almost there, mom! We're almost there! We're going to make it!"** Kathia cried out, excited when she saw the forest in the horizon. Their hype was cut short when a big fireball hit Mrs. Rittevon from behind and killed her. The impact threw her down on the ground with a totally bad case of burns on all of the rear side of her body. **"MOM!"** Kathia shouted in shock.

A man ran up to her side and took her away. **"Come on, we can't stay here. We have to go!"** Without hesitation, Kathia ran with him and the other living people out into the woods.

* * *

The teleport spell had taken Atlas over to the slave prison place, where she had seen her fellow dragons and broken free from their cages and killing the slavers. _'Looks like the Spell had done a huge miracle for us like I thought,'_ she thought. With everyone fighting the helpless handlers, this left Atlas to one task she had came to do: find her friend, Snively, who had been locked up in a secret place from the rest of the dragons and used as a hostage to get the magi to fight hard in the tournaments. _'Snively, I'm here. Where are you? Send me an image of where you are,'_ she asked telepathically.

A telepathic image of a dark, dusty, and gloomy room came into the magi's mind. _'I'm right here. Now get me out of here; I'm tired of living in this cold and musty place,'_ said Snively.

_'I'm coming, just wait for me,'_ Atlas replied. Then she went off to go find the secret room. Atlas ran past the other dragons and broke through the wall where she stepped into the hallway. The maids and butlers all ran away screaming at the top of their lungs. The magi ran after one of them for the purpose of catching and interrogating them about her friend's whereabouts. She rose an earthly wall out of the ground to block and trap the servants. One of the maids fainted from shock from the fact that her doom was now inevitable. Atlas came up to the humans, growling and glaring at them. **"Alright humans, talk! Where did your master, Tristan, put my friend, Snively? You know, that winged mint dragon you dirtbags took to keep me fighting in those death matches you love so much,"** she asked harshly. Tristan was the name of her current owner.

One of the butlers, despite being scared out of his wits, took what little courage he had to answer, **"H-h-he's locked up... in the m-m-master's chamber... Behind th-that secret d-d-door."**

The dragoness looked at the butler and said, **"Oh, so you know where he is, huh? Very well, you better take me to him right away or I'll have you and your buddies roasted thoroughly. You got that?"** She gave a warning growl to him.

**"Y-y-yes sir, uh, I m-mean ma'am, uh.. uh..."** the butler was at loss for words.

**"Let's just go!"** Atlas yelled. She didn't have time to listen to this coward stutter; she wanted to see if Snively was all right before she could rejoin her family. The butler took the dragoness to Master Tristan's chamber, where she busted down the wall, since the door was too small for her.

The butler went to a seemingly normal wall and pushed against it, where it was revealed to be a hidden rotating door. **"Y-you can find him right this way, dra.. uh I m-mean ma'am,"** he answered.

**"Good, I'm going in! Now get the hell out of here, before I kill you,"** Atlas threatened. With that, the butler ran out the room as his life literally depended on it. The magi broke down the hidden door and crawled down the dark tunnel. **"Snively, are you there? Answer me!"**

**"I can hear you, Atlas. Boy, I'm glad that I'm finally going to get out of this dump. You have no idea how lonely I am without others around," **the mint called back.

**"Hang on, kid. I'm coming!"** Atlas reached the end of the tunnel and broke the cage using her earth magic. The mint dragon took his time to smile at his regained freedom and stretch his limbs. **"Alright Snively, let's get out of here!"** They went back to the slave room, where Atlas broke down the wall to the outdoors. As dragons flew out, the magi roared, **"Freedom, everybody! Freedom!"** She and Snively watched their fellow slaves leave either to unleash their vengeance on the humans or make their new homes in the woods. The magi looked down at her friend and asked, **"So now that we're all out of our cages for good, what will you do now, Snively? Kill the humans or what?"**

**"Nah, I'm just going to head on to the woods. I'm a lover not a fighter,"** the mint answered.

**"Very well then. You take care, alright? Let me know how things are going every now and then."**

**"Alright, I will." **Then the winged mint flew away to parts unknown.

Now that Atlas's task was done, the only thing left to do was rejoin her family and go home back to Solomos, where they belong. The magi dragoness made a telepathic link to her sister and said, _'Flarina, I got Snively and the others out. I'm on my way to meet you all out in the woods right away.'_

_'Okay, we'll be waiting,'_ Flarina replied. Atlas would have teleported over to them right away, but her teleportation spell only worked once per hour. That means the magi would have to take the long away around. Atlas spread her wings and took out into the air to fly through the city.

* * *

I added a bit more to the dialogue between Atlas and Nick, because I felt like Atlas wouldn't walk away quietly without asking why she shouldn't hurt someone from an enemy race.

EDIT: So while doing my next special edition, I noticed that Spuma and Zee were at Kathia's place while Atlas's slave home is at Tristan's place. I edit the two cameo characters out, so that the story would be more accurate to logic. They'll be back in the Short-Time Characters edition, which is up on my DA account: /d7q0jl0 Just erased it to work.

Atlas Firestar, Aeolus, Kathia, Snively, Flarina, Danielle, and Kylie (c) me  
Nick (c) picknick10


	3. The Winds' Revenge

**Chapter 2: The Winds' Revenge**

In the 17th century, Aristocratic dragons were having a spring family reunion in the forest. Extended family members gathered here to share their stories and tales with one other, having friendly competitive sports, and letting their hatchlings play with one another. An emerald green baby dragon with a dark yellow underbelly was playing tag with three other hatchlings, including his own sister. The green disaster hatchling tagged the blue one and passed the "It" status on to him before he and another hatchling ran away from their pursuer. They passed by four male dragons who were having a conversation. The ash-gray dragon broodily groaned, **"This century just keeps getting better and better... Last week, a bunch of humans came in with bows and arrows and shot down Freddy and his friends. Then those savages threw the wounded in cages and tied the dead to the back of their wagons and took them away into the village. I tell you, folks. Days are getting grimmer and grimmer when everybody would either get shot dead or put onto the market as a fresh slave ready to be broken dry. I wouldn't be surprised if the next century turns out the same way as this one did."**

**"Me neither. I bet it's only a matter of time before we're all next,"** said the pessimist dark orange dragon. The moonstone and summer dragons both nodded their heads in agreement. The disaster hatchling overhead what the adults were saying and instantly became worried. Would the humans come and take him away eventually? Or would they probably kill him on the spot? He didn't want to be stolen away from his family and be a slave for the rest of his life or wind up dead. The thoughts about these two treacherous fates were scary enough to make his belly churn.

While pondering in his thoughts, the disaster hatchling was taken by surprise when the blue hatchling ran faster and pounced him down to the ground. **"Gotcha! Now you're It!"** the blue said, laughing before he ran off.

But the green hatchling didn't bother to go after him; instead he asked this question, **"Hey Bam, do you think the humans will ever kidnap us?"**

Bam stopped running and turned around to look back at his playmate. **"Huh? Why would you ask that?"** he asked, wondering.

**"Well it's because I heard the grown-ups saying that the humans were going to get us someday. So thought that maybe someday we all would be next eventually,"** replied the disaster hatchling.

Bam laughed at the nonsense he was hearing and said confidently, **"Hah, me next? No way, pal! There's no way the humans would get to me as long as daddy's around. He's a really strong dragon and he can kick those humans' butts easily! And when I grow up, I'm going to be as big and strong like my daddy."**

**"Yeah, but what if the humans do get you? Then what?"** asked the green, not sure if Bam and his father's strength would protect them from the strange-looking primates.

Three other hatchlings came up to them when the game had taken a break. The female green hatchling asked, **"Brother, what's wrong? Why aren't you chasing Bam?"**

The brother would have answered the question had Bam not beaten him to it first, **"Oh he just heard the worrywart grown-ups say that the humans are going to get us all and now he thinks it's going to happen someday."**

The sister smiled gently and went over to her brother and assured, **"Brother, relax. Everything is going to be alright."**

The orange hatchling approached too and said, **"Yeah Aeolus, let's just keep playing the game and worry about that stuff later."**

Aeolus, now comforted, let go of his fears and said, **"Yeah, I guess you're right. Let's get back to playing, shall we?"** Then he had a mischievous smirk on his face and shoved his paw into his sister. **"By the way, you're It now!"** he teased.

**"Hey, get back here!"** the girl hatchling said in her playfully annoyed tone. She gave chase to the fleeing hatchlings as they all laughed and have a good time.

* * *

About 30 minutes later, all the dragons gathered together for a meeting and toast to their reunion. A dark green dragon, who was the host of this party, landed on top of the monolith and said to his family, **"Everyone, it has been an honor to have you all here for this family reunion. It makes me so happy to see how many of us are here to this day after all the hardships and losses we've suffered in our long lives and in this dark age. And even though our enslaved and dead kin are no longer with us, I can feel their presence among us in spirit."** Some of the dragons lowered their heads in grief while a few others shed tears for their lost loved ones. The host understood their sorrow and felt sympathy for them as he said, **"Yes, yes, I know these tragedies must pain you so. But never fear, my fellow brothers and sisters, maybe some day there will come a new era when dragons will no longer be exploited by mankind and we can all get on back with our peaceful lives without fear of losing our lives, freedoms, and loved ones at the hands of these fiends. We'll even be reunited with our friends and family. Now I know this sounds like I'm giving you all false promises here, but how many times in history did we as a species survive death and injustice? For every despair, there is always hope for us; a miracle waiting to happen. And I assure you that miracle will come one way or another, no matter how many years or centuries it takes to get there. So let us keep hoping for that day and for the humans to get the punishment they deserve. For now, I give a toast to all of us here in these woods and all around the world and the life beyond."**

All the dragons roared out in applause and cheers. Even little Aeolus was giving out his cute high-pitched roar. His father's speech had put down half of his worries about his future fate. _'Well I guess even if I do get captured and starved, I'll be able to get out of slavery free and alive,'_ the hatchling thought. Hope would be there to save him in the end. The celebration soon was put to an end when a gunshot was heard. Aeolus's father had taken a bullet to the heart as he grunted out in pain and fell over dead. The astonished dragons gasped at the murder that had taken place right in front of them. Aeolus and his mother &amp; sister had taken the hardest hit as they were all struck with grief. **"Father!"** the son cried.

Within the next second, human soldiers came in with swords slashing and bayonets firing at the crowd; wounding and killing some of them in the process. Panicking screams and roars filled the air as parents gathered their hatchlings and fled, while those, who can afford to fight, bought time for them by fending off the humans with fiery breaths, plant-controlling magic, and other magical powers to fight against swords, guns, and cannons. Despite the dragon's incredible powers; the humans came prepared with anti-dragon magic to subdue their dinosaurian prey. The humans cast barriers to shield themselves against the offense and used sleeping spells to knock out the dragons. The mages cast magical webs to catch and paralyze the captives with electric shocks. Not even Bam's father, who was the strongest as the hatchling claimed to be, was tough enough to avoid succumbing to the sleep spell and getting a killing stab through the neck. Bam, was in disbelief and shock, and would have been to the fullest extent, if he wasn't feeling very tired at the moment. **"Daddy, no..."** were his last words before his unconsciousness.

Aeolus's mother tried to escape with her two hatchlings carried in her forelegs like arms. She surrounded herself with magical winds to prevent the sleeping gas from going into her lungs, but that didn't stop the weapons' ammo from being fired upon them. One bullet flew into the skull of Aeolus's sister and blood started gushing out of her head from where she got killed. Both the brother and the mother were horrified to see another member of their family had been taken. **"No!"** Aeolus shouted.

**"Selicia!"** the mother cried out in grief over the death of her precious baby. Soon afterwards, a cannon shot out an iron that flew hard into the mother's back and broke her spine. The light gray dragoness roared out loudly in agony as she crashed down onto the ground, dropping both of her hatchlings in the process. Aeolus rolled on the ground and hurt himself before he stopped and lifted his head up to see the painful state his mother was in. She was belly flat on the ground, moaning in pain as she struggled against the will to lay down and keep herself from hurting any further. Her son, the only one she had left, needed her and she had to keep him safe from the humans.

The dragoness managed to raise her head, but she didn't get to stand on her legs next, because the soldiers came at her with spears to jab her with. Aeolus got all frantic and worried watching the two-legged monsters attack his parent. **"Mother!"** he shouted.

Then a hand grabbed him by scruff as a gruff voice sounded from behind, **"Come here, you!"** The hatchling was lifted up off the ground and thrown into a small cage. The man carried the cage over to one of the wagons where the other caged hatchlings were put. The sleep spell started to take its toll on Aeolus as his vision became dark and the last thing he saw was his mother getting dragged by the soldiers.

* * *

Since that tragic day, Aeolus Gallion had spent all his 448 years doing grueling work for all the slavers he had in his life. As of now, the green dragon and other dragons with electric abilities were in the power plant zapping the generator's lightning rods to provide energy to the entire city. It was exhausting to everyone's mouths, which the electric breaths came from, and bodies, which the magic originate. Aeolus could feel himself wanting to stopped and take a much-needed break for his mouth and lungs, but then that would earn him the sharp stings of the whips and painful shocks of the tasers. The humans wanted their slaves working constantly for like 24 hours a day to keep the town running. An overseer walked by the line of slaves, keeping a sharp eye for anyone who fails to do their jobs. The man cracked his whip on the hard floor and yelled, **"Keep zapping, you scaly scums! I want to see you all work!"**

His words weren't that much helpful as everyone knew what would happen to them should they fail to do their jobs. Aeolus's red eyes shifted to the side to look at the man with contempt for him and his species. How he wanted to break free and destroy all humans and make them pay for that he had suffered over the centuries, including getting revenge for the death of his mother, whose spine had been fortunately healed by a white dragon, but was unfortunate to die after being worked to death years later. He already had a such a plan that would achieve this desire and liberate all the dragons around the world. That plan was the Spell, which he and another older and wiser dragon by the name of Arcaon worked on. Arcaon was a dragon that Aeolus heard about from a fellow slave who got transported from Rudvich; the disaster dragon came into contact with Arcaon via telepathy and discussed how they were going save all of dragonkind. Thus, they came up with the solution of disabling all human weaponry and dragon-suppressing tech on the whole planet. In order for the Spell to work, nearly all the dragons around the world must combine their magic energy into the global telepathy to power up the spellcasters who would then unleash the Spell's global effect. Plus with the several natural disasters and the natural resources used to repair cities such as metal ores and oil running low, the humans will be too weak to fend for themselves against the dragons' wrath as their number of weapons were getting fewer every day. Tonight was going to be great!

* * *

After the slaves were sent back to their cages with two dragons dead from starvation and over-exhaustion, the dragons waited until most of the humans left the room and only the few guards remained. Aeolus laid down in his cage with tail curled around his body and wings down as he waited for his fellow mastermind to give him the signal. The other slaves were too anticipating the coming the of the Spell as hope was shining in their eyes. The disaster dragon heard Arcaon's telepathic message, _'Now's the time Aeolus. Tell the other dragons to release the Spell now.' _

Grateful that the time had finally come, Aeolus formed a telepathic bond with the whole world and said, _'Everyone, the time has come for our freedom! All dragons cast the Spell now!' _So the dragons worked together and unleashed the Spell. When the electricity coursing through the barbed wires curled around the bars of his cage shut down, Aeolus felt content to see that his brilliant plan had worked like a charm. The Spell did the same thing to the cages of his fellow slave dragons. The green dragon of earth and wind ripped the wires off his cage door while resisting the pain the thorns gave to his paw. **"My brothers, the time for liberty has come and the genocide and slavery we've suffered at the hands of the humans has finally ended. No longer will we work ourselves to death while the humans flog us. No longer will we eat rotten food, while the humans fill themselves fat. No longer will our lives be of misery and pain, while the humans live in luxury and greed. No longer will our hatchlings be torn away from their families and be robbed of their childhoods. No longer will our eggs be used as food for the humans. And no longer will any more of our wild brethren be slain or captured to live what we went through. Today is the day, we dragons take back our freedom and revolt against these wretched hairless apes! Everyone, RISE!"** Around the room, dragons roared and broke out of their cages.

The guards saw what was happening and grabbed their guns and metal pokers to attack. Their weapons failed to do their job and the men were quickly electrocuted and eaten by the rebels. One guard scared for his life at the chaos going on, frantically took out his walkie-talkie and spoke into it, **"Alert! Alert! We got a code red down here at Section 22. Those dragons are breaking out of their cages and killing our men. I need backup ASAP!"** Then he was quickly zapped by Aeolus's lightning breath. The man's body flashed a few short times with his skeleton showing every second before he collapsed down and burnt.

**"Thanks for giving us more victims to kill, fool! They'll thank you in the afterlife,"** the disaster dragon said coldly and glad that he was going to have more of these damn apes to murder.

The reinforcements soon came in, armed and ready to quell the rebellion. **"Alright you lizards, prepare to die!"** one of the men said. The slaves, knowing that the guards can't do a thing anymore, quickly zapped them to death before the humans would realized that their guns were useless after pulling the trigger once. Then the slaves left the cage room and went to kill the rest of their human masters in the building before they all left the place of their servitude. Aeolus destroyed the powerplant with his earthquake power before he and the others went out into the city to join up with the other free dragons to attack the humans. The disaster breathed out lightning at a crowd of humans, killing most of them while paralyzing the survivors, who would most likely get finished off by the other dragons. Then he came across a blue dragoness brutally killing a group of hunters in a bloody scene. _'Hunters... Serves them right,'_ the green dragon thought, feeling no pity for the dragon slayers.

The frightened humans tried to run away from the dragoness, but only to be slaughtered by other angry dragons. The others tried to fight back with their now useless weapons and anything they got with them, but the dragoness was much quicker and experienced in close combat than they were. Plus, she was driven by a grief, rage and sorrow, which gave her more strength. There were also humans, who immediately realised, what they have done. However, they also knew that their fate was sealed the moment they became slayers and slavers. So they just stood there, ignoring others and waiting for vicious claws to take away their lives. The number of hunters was rapidly decreasing, now reduced to one hundred. As time went by, the human populace in the city was dropping rapidly from death by dragons and humans who were lucky to escape into the outskirts. Even the buildings were getting torn, burned down, or crumbled by the dragons' might. Aeolus kept on killing and killing every person, both civilian and fighter, until he saw a hunter going at the blue dragoness with a knife. The green dragon quickly zapped him to death before the man could touch her with blade. The dragoness turned instantly to find the electrified corpse of the hunter. She quickly found the reason of his death, who happened to be the emerald-greed dragon himself. Nodding to him in thanks, she shoved the corpse so he would drop the knife, grabbed the knife and continued to kill the humans, now with less brutality, but with more thinking. She carefully watched the number of humans killed.

Aeolus kept helping the blue dragoness to kill off the hunters until soon there was none left. Time went by with the city becoming more desolated and destroyed with hundreds of human bodies laying dead; the survivors escaped the city and went out into the desert. Aeolus went over to a dying man, who was lying face flat breathing and bleeding, and stomped down on his head to crush it. There was another survivor nearby, which happened to be a man, presumably around 25 years old, with a gash on his foot. The dragoness immediately leaped to him, pinned him to the ground, and telepathically said to other dragons not to interrupt. Then she looked at the man. **"Drop all of the weapons you have with you. Every single one,"** she ordered with grim expression on her face.

**"No, you lizard,"** snarled the man. The dragoness just raised her eyebrow and gestured to look around. Human did so to see a lot of dragons that were staring right at him.

**"I can just leave you here at their mercy, and I doubt that they will spare you. Now do as I said: drop off. Every. Weapon. You have. NOW,"**she said the final word with a growl. Shaken, the man began to quickly set aside everything he had: pistol, some sort of a rifle, a pair of combat knives, a phone, a grenade and camera. Rina immediately took away the grenade and knives, setting them out of human's reach.

Aeolus looked at the lone human survivor and asked mockingly under his cold and disapproving expression, **"So human, how does it feel to have all your technological powers, family, friends, and rule stripped away from you all in one night? How does it feel to have the tables turned against you after all the dragons around the world grew tired of being your third-class slaves and retaliated in revenge. You arrogant fools should have thought of the consequences when you first threw us in cages and killed the others for sport. Because of what you've done, your kind has paid for your current generation and your ancestors' actions in blood. And I doubt my fellow dragons will stop until every last human dead has fulfilled their thirst for revenge."**

The man just laughed and said, **"So what? What are you going to do about this? Annihilate all humans or something? I know you want to, ya lizards. Now that you threw out your magic thing and now we can't use even a microwave! SO WHAT?"**

**"I am not going to kill you,"** said the dragoness suddenly, but the human just mockingly laughed again. Then she added, **"But I can make so and I WILL do so that you will never be the same as you are now. Tell me, did any human return to your town with a certain mark on their backs?"**

**"Well... yeah. What of it?"** huffed the man.

**"Now tell me: what did you do to those humans?"**

**"Well, we tortured and killed them, since they... befriended you, lizards... or something... wait..."** Suddenly, the human's face became ill as he realized what what about to happen to him and said, **"You are not going to..."**

**"Yes, I am,"** nodded the dragoness. **"And believe me, it is much worse than you think. Even worse than death... well, for you murderers, that is."** She roughly turned him around and exposed his back. There she began to draw her clan's mark with her claws. Of course it was painful for a man, but it was bearable, so he didn't gave any sort of scream. But he was afraid; very afraid.

Aeolus watched the dragoness carve some kind of insignia on the man's back. He didn't know the exact purpose of putting it on the human, but from what the man said about the marked humans who befriended dragons, Aeolus guessed that she was going to frame him as an ally of dragons so that the other humans will turn on him like a pack of wolves. _'This should be a fate quite fitting for someone who kills their own kind, even though these people would side with dragons for some reason,'_ he thought. Come of think of it, the disaster dragon found it rather odd and peculiar that there were some humans who would befriend his kind at the cost of getting punished by others, whom a majority were about enslaving dragonkind. But he was quite suspicious of their motives, because he had befriended some humans before who pretended to be dragon sympathizers, but in the end they all ended up betraying him.

But Aeolus thought wrong; when the dragoness was done with drawing a sign, she let the man go. But immediately after that she started to quickly chant words that were forming a Curse. As soon as the man stood up, he fell back on the ground, screaming with pain. The mark was glowing now and with each word chanted, the glow became larger and larger. Soon every dragon nearby began to receive telepathic signals, which were telling them information about the man. His physical and mental condition, emotions, name, thoughts. But most importantly, what he has done: participating in annihilation of the clan of Eternal Wind and personally killing 6 dragons with 2 of them being children. When the dragoness finished the Curse, the human whose name was Simon went limp on the ground, not being able to move from all the pain that was racing through his body seconds ago. **"This is your punishment, human,"** said the dragoness coldly. **"Now every dragon nearby knows what you have done. The guilt and the memories of your crime will haunt you, until you try to actually think about it and change yourself. Death is a too swift punishment for the likes of you. That means you don't have to worry about being killed by dragons or attempting suicide. And I doubt that you would be killed by another human after the Spell. But don't think that you are free, human. Like I said, the memories will haunt you and painful memories tend to be sharper than claws."**

Aeolus growled to the man as well, **"You had better learn from your past, if you wish to get on our good side and live in peace for the rest of your miserable life."**

Simon passed out from the exhaustion the Curse caused, but deep in his mind, both dragon's words were "carved" in his memory. _'Maybe this lizard is just scaring me. It has to be!'_ were his thoughts before passing out.

The disaster dragon read what was in Simon's head and thought, _'Deny us all you want, but you'll know how it plays out for you later.'_ Then he took a better look at the mark for a few moments before recognizing the familiar mark he heard about in stories shared by fellow slaves a long time ago. Then he asked the blue dragoness, **"That mark on his back; it looks like it belongs to a clan. Would you happen to be of the Eternal Wind clan?"**

The dragoness turned her head to him and replied with somewhat sorrow tone, **"Yes, I am from the clan of Eternal Wind, which ceased it's physical existence three days ago. Now it exists only in memory."**

Aeolus felt pity for her and said, **"I'm quite sorry to hear. You have my sympathies, Miss... I'm sorry, what's you name?"**

**"It's Rina; Rina Windcutter,"** she said, **"and thank you." **Then she looked away over to the side as if she was mourning something that was over in that direction.

**"You're welcome, Rina, and may your clan rest in peace now that it has been avenged. Farewell and take care,"** said the dragon. Then he walked off and picked a some dead humans to eat so that he could fill his belly before traveling out of the city. The meat was definitely a lot tastier than the horrid foods the slavers had given him, but there was the nuisance of the clothing that felt inedible to eat. So Aeolus remove these covers and enjoyed his nude meal. After his hunger was satisfied, Aeolus left the city and traveled across the desert lands. It felt good to finally be out of human habitat, because now he can enjoy his newfound liberty of a better life. He went on for while until he got to a destroyed village where dragon bodies and a few human hunters were lain dead with dried blood and flesh eating by vultures and maggots on the ground. Among that village was the Eternal Wind Clan insignia on the tall rock. He recalled earlier of Rina looking off towards the side with a sad look on her face. _'So this is where she lives. No wonder why she looked off in this direction like that and now I've stumbled upon her home. I should give this clan a proper burial,'_ thought Aeolus. He started to dig up holes here in clan territory to make as it felt right for the clan to be rested here at home. After that was done, he proceed to putting the dragons in their graves and fill the holes back with dirt to prevent their bodies from being desecrated any further by scavengers. No burial was made for the humans as they were taken out of the village to be laid to waste away from sacred grounds.

After finishing burying the Eternal Wind clan in their graves, the dragon decided to rest here for the night after all the hard work, his first job not ordered by humans, he did. He went to the tallest rock and carved words in Draconic language, "Here lies the Eternal Wind Clan." The green dragon went to one of the caves and went to inside. He would need a lot of energy to make the journey to a biome suited to his breed, such as a forest or a volcanic area, where he would make his home. But more preferably the woods, since there was plenty of food that thrived there.

* * *

When Rina reached her now destroyed village, she noticed that the bodies were no longer there. She noticed that the sand is slightly deformed in places and guessed that someone buried the bodies. _'Perhaps it was Aeolus... that was his name, if I'm not mistaken...'_ she thought, recalling to hear this name from a group of magis. She closed her eyes in appreciation and when her eyes opened again, Rina headed the place she knew that would give her an answer to her question; her chieftain's cave. She stopped near the cave, which belonged to her best friend, Itakira; someone was there. Her suspicions cleared, as she recognized the emerald-green dragon, or rather Aeolus, from before. For the first time after the disaster, she smiled.

* * *

**Author's Note:** This story starts off with a never-before-seen backstory, albeit rushed, to give more depth to Aeolus's character. The last part of this chapter is probably the only time I will use the PoV of another person's character. On the next chapter will go back to Atlas who will be fighting to save a fellow slave's friend as well as fight a bunch of nasty monsters to save her family.

Aeolus, Bam, and Selicia (c) me  
Rina, Simon, and Itakira (c) TheTron852


	4. Hybrids

**Chapter 3: Hybrids**

Meanwhile at the woods, the Firestar family were patiently waiting for their sister/aunt to reach them. **"Mommy, when will we see Aunt Atlas?"** asked a young black-striped whiptail hatchling named Danielle, who was curious about her mother's sister whom she'll be meeting. Will Atlas look big and strong? How nice is she? Those were the kinds of questions the hatchlings had about their aunt.

The red whiptail dragoness looked down at her and gently patted her daughter with her thin tail as she answered, **"Don't worry, dear. She'll be hear soon."  
**  
John, the black balloon dragon, picked up some approaching hostile scents and alerted, **"Flarina! I smell hybrids. We have to get out of here!"  
**  
The dragonesses looked alert and scared as Flarina said, **"Hybrids?! Oh no... why can't we ever get them off our tails?"** Flarina was one of the dragon slaves, whose whiptail DNA was used to grant super speed to the artificially-created half-human, half-dragon beings known as hybrids, made for the purpose of being super biological weapons against dragons. The humans would breed their slaves and then implant and manipulate various genes in the embryo to create warriors with the best traits of the dragon types they had. Flarina herself had a few hybrid children, but she refused to call those monsters her own. To her, Danielle and Kylie were the only real offspring that she had with John after she managed to escape the lab.

**"Mommy, we got to go!"** Kylie cried, pressuring her mother to take them away quickly. She was a magenta-colored balloon hatchling with matching colored horns on her head, an orange underbelly, orange mouth, and the upper part of her face was black.

**"I know; hang on, girls!"** Flarina said as she carried her daughters on her back and took off into the air as her tail wrapped around her inflated mate's foot to pull him along, since he can't float fast enough to escape their pursuers. The family flew fast over the horde of trees with John and Kylie being the guides to see in the darkness and help show the way. The dragoness sent a telepathic message to her sister, _'Atlas, if you're out here in the woods, don't come looking for us, because right now we're being chased by those wretched hybrids. I'll let you know when it's all clear.'_

* * *

Atlas flew on through the sky over the rampaging catastrophe that was happening in the city. After she made a corner around a skyscraper, she suddenly crashed into a yellowish dragoness. The impact made the magi fall down towards the ground as she moaned, **"Whoaaaa!"** To she save herself from a very rough landing, she used her wind magic to create a large gust of wind to blow towards herself and the other falling dragoness to break their falls. After regaining control, Atlas softened the wind to let them land on their feet before gradually letting the spell disappear. That was when she heard her sister's message and became worried. _'You're being chased by what?! Flarina, I can't ignore this and let those dragon-killing scums get to you. I'm coming over!'_ she said telepathically.

_'But Atlas, there's only 10 of them and they're all really fast. I'm worried they'll tear you apart if you try to fight them. Please stay down,'_ her sister warned.

The magi reminded her, _'Flarina, I'm a long-time champion of dragon tournaments and I've fought lots of tough opponents, even a few whiptails. There's nothing I can't handle; even if I'm fighting multiple numbers. I promise you that once those half-breeds see me, they'll be dead and wishing they didn't cross me.' _She took off back into the air and resumed her flight to get to her family in time whilst using her wind magic to make herself go faster.

* * *

The further the family got over the woods, the more distance increased between them and their wingless pursuers. However, the five winged hybrids, unhindered by the trees not in their path, were still at the same distance from when Flarina took flight. When the multicolored hybrid spat a fireball at the dragoness's wing, she yelped and jerked in pain, causing Kylie to fall off. **"Mommy!"** screamed the balloon hatchling.

**"Kylie!"** cried the worried mother. She flew down to catch her falling daughter. Kylie fell past the branches and inflated herself in hopes of softening her fall; it worked. She slowed down gracefully like an autumn leaf as she floated towards the ground. The whiptail dragoness caught up to her daughter and asked, **"Oh Kylie, are you alright?"**

**"She won't be after we're through with you and your wretched family!"** spoke the mocking and ghoulish tone of one of the land hybrids. The hybrids all caught up to them and surrounded the family.

Flarina glared at the hybrid, she was most familiar with, but hated to the core. **"Ramkot!"** she growled.

**"Ah hello, mother. I see you're quite happy to see me,"** said the black-maned red hybrid sneeringly.

**"I'm not your mother, you heartless murderer!"** Flarina retorted harshly.

**"Oh really? Our blood seems to say so otherwise. After all, it was you who laid my egg and gave birth to me. In fact, it was thanks to you, that I'm running around killing dragons left and right. So who's the real murderer here, bitch?"** Ramkot reminded her. The other hybrids laughed and chuckled.

John got angry at the ridiculing hybrids and yelled, **"The humans made you, not Flarina! She didn't want any part in this. But yet your horrible creators forced her along with other dragons against their will to conceive monsters like you!"** He shook his fist at them.

The hybrid leader said, **"And last time I checked, dragons were monsters. In fact, we just saw a city go up in flames just now. You, animals, aren't so different from the rest of us."**

**"At least we have heart. As for the city thing, we were just rebelling to fight for our freedoms. And I'll be honest that a lot of humans have died in the process, but that was for revenge against everything that has been done to us as well as to prevent other innocent dragons from getting hurt by them. But you, Ramkot; you just kill for your sick twisted pleasure, just like your human masters,"** the balloon dragon growled.

Ramkot scoffed, **"Heh, and I have no shame in doing what I think is fun. Besides, revenge isn't that much different than from why I kill. Anyway enough talk, it's time for you scalies to die and for mother to go back to the lab where she belongs." Then he made a cruel smirk at his mother and said, "Flarina, say goodbye to boyfriend and your baby brats!"** Flarina quickly wrapped her forelegs around her screaming frightened daughters and shielded them with her wings as she breathed fire at any hybrid who dared to get within her proximity. John did his best to fend them off as well using his black magic spells to cast at them. Ramkot used the power of his golden wyvern genes to create a nightmarish illusion that would scare the dragons into letting their guards down. However, Flarina having full knowledge of every skill and trick, her illegitimate son uses, was not deceived when she 'saw' her children turning into fearsome snarling demons.

John, knowing Ramkot's trick as well after having been in it two times, saw the world around him turn into red hellish skull-like faces and his foes disappear into nothing, rending the hybrids 'invisible' to him, but he knew they were still there. He did his best not to pay attention to faces as he tried to spam his spells in random directions, but not in the direction where he last saw Flarina, as she too had seemed to disappear as well and he didn't want to risk hurting her.

The winged orange &amp; white hybrid took advantage of the blind-spot and attacked him from behind. She clamped her jaws down at him and scratched him with her claws. The balloon screamed in agony as three other hybrids jumped and attacked him, tearing blooding scars onto his black pelt. The white one with a bladed tail thrust the blade into his back and stabbed his heart. John froze in shock as blood started to rush to his mouth. The white hybrid withdrew her tail and let the father fall over dead. **"John!"** Flarina screamed in horror and heartbreak. Her mate, the one had given her love, care, her precious daughters, and the promise of reuniting with Atlas, had fallen victim before her very eyes.

Very soon, the smell of John's blood filled the air, causing all the hybrids to go into their dreaded hunter's mode. Ramkot laughed evilly and said, **"Oh how breathe-taking, the smell of dragon blood. It makes me energetic, it makes me feel pleasure, it makes me want to RELEASE THE BEAST INSIDE ME!"** Then he looked at Flarina and the hatchlings and snarled, **"MOTHER, FORGET TAKING YOU BACK! I JUST WANT TO KILL EVERYTHING IN SIGHT!"** Then the hybrids ran towards the family, who ducked in fear.

**"Get away from my sister, you filthy mutt monkeys!"** shouted an angry voice. Then a fire beam spell was launched at eight of the hybrids, who blasted away. Ramkot and the blue wyvern woman hybrid were lucky to have evaded the spell by jumping out of the way.

Flarina looked at her sister, coming into the clearing, and cried, **"Atlas!"**

The hatchlings looked at their aunt for the first time and Danielle asked, **"That's Aunt Atlas?"**

**"Yes it is, Danielle. And she's here to save us,"** the mother confirmed.

The hybrids turned their attention to Atlas, who was snarling threateningly at them. **"Another chew toy, this will be fun!"** Ramkot said. The magi shot fireballs at the hybrids, who quickly ran to avoid them. Then they all got onto her as they raked their claws and bit her with their sharp teeth. The dragoness snarled and tried to shake off her attackers before her body became blazed with the fire aura. The hybrids yowled and jumped off her when the flames burned them. But Ramkot, having some bit of resistance to them intense stings of the flames thanks to the golden scales beneath his red fur, stay on his aunt. He climbed towards her head, seeking to rip out her eye. Atlas felt him and turned her head around to bite down at him, but missed when jumped on of her snout.

When he raised his claw to attack, Flarina spew a fireball at him, throwing Ramkot off of Atlas. The magi pushed her paw down on the fallen hybrid leader and growled, **"You must be Ramkot."**

**"Yeah and what's of it, maggot?"** the hybrid growled.

Atlas growled, **"Flarina told me how much of a disgusting little twat you are! I'm going to do her and everyone else a huge favor by getting rid of you and your half-breed buddies!"**

**"I'd like to see you try, worm. That is, if you can kill all ten of us. But I doubt you'll be able to,"** Ramkot challenged.

**"Don't underestimate me, mutt! I'm a dragon tournament champion and I've killed over a 100..."** Then Atlas got interrupted by laser shots spewed out by the blue-footed gray hybrid who changed into his dragon form. Then the winged gray hybrid blew out her fire aura with the strong gust of wind from his wings. After that, a winged green human-dragon cross flew in and delivered punches and a hard kick to Atlas's face, which was followed by the orange &amp; white hybrid sinking her claws down onto the magi's neck and pulled her head backwards to expose her jugular. The white hybrid went in for the kill by jumping at the dragoness with his blade tail forward. To save herself, Atlas used her wind aura spell blow away the hybrid hard into a tree behind Flarina, who ducked her head down to avoid having the creature fly into her.

The impact hurt the white hybrid and knocked the breath out of him. Flarina grabbed him by the long thin tail with her teeth and started slamming the hybrid again and again on the ground. The multicolored hybrid saw that and went to save his friend by shooting radiation balls from his mouth to hit the whiptail. Flarina snarled in pain and let go of the white hybrid, who was now laying hurt on the ground.

Atlas, still in her wind aura to keep the hybrids at bay, froze the scarf-wearing human hybrid in ice from the air with her ice stream spell. He fell on the ground, trying to break free from his awfully cold cocoon. The magi would have taken his chance to kill him had Ramkot not freed him by using his fiery breath on the ice. Atlas glared at her nephew and growled, **"You bastard!"** The red hybrid smirked in return.

The dragoness cast her three of her ice spear spells at Ramkot, who dodged all of them swiftly and taunted her with a smirk. Provoked of her fury, the magi and yelled, **"Stop dodging you little mutt!"** Then she got pelted again with the lasers from the hybrid dragon. She hissed from the scalding pain on her side and wing. The shifted dragon blew out more lasers to damage her some more. Having enough of this, Atlas blocked the incoming shots with her rocky earth barrier spell, which protected her from all sides.

Having no way to attack their prey like this, Ramkot decided they were going to have to get through the barrier if they were kill Atlas. **"Heh, as if that's going to save your life. Someone, break through that rock. I want her to learn that nothing's going to save her hide,"** he told his comrades.

The blonde human hybrid punched his fist through the barrier and made a hole. There, he saw that a newly dug-out hole beneath the earthly cage. **"Hey, she's gone,"** he said.

**"What? How?"** Ramkot asked.

**"She just dug underground, sir,"** the blonde answered.

**"Well don't just stand there like a schoolgirl, go after her!"** the red hybrid yelled. Just then, an orange dragoness burst out from underground and sank her jaws down on the dragon hybrid's throat. The hybrid screamed in startled pain as he fought to shake her off, but Atlas was biting down harder on him, letting her teeth sink further into his flesh. Within the next second, she ripped his throat out and let blood gush out of the hole where the throat used to be. The dragon collapsed and upon his death, reverted back into the lean dark gray hybrid he was before his transformation.

Atlas ate the flesh she tore off and licked the blood around her lips. **"That was delicious! Now which one of you monkeys want to be my next meal?"** she asked leeringly.

The orange &amp; white hybrid got angry and snarled, **"Are you mocking us, dragon?! Because it's you who should be ours!"** With no thought to her next actions, she flew swiftly at the magi's neck and viciously bite and clawed at her with extreme prejudice. Atlas roared in hurt and used her fire aura spell to save her own life. The hybrid let out a loud scream of agony as she fell off and thrashed around on the ground as she fought the flames scalding away at her flesh. The magi took her into the big iron maiden that was her jaws and flew up into the air. Atlas wanted to kill another hybrid without the interruptions from the others on the ground.

She chewed on the hybrid's body as the teeth dug further and further into the body, breaking and detaching bones in the process. The orange &amp; white hybrid's loud blood-chilling scream sounded in the air above everyone. When it was over, Atlas spit out and let the dead and badly burned hybrid drop to the ground for everyone to see. **"Tonight, there will be roasted hybrid meat! Too bad none of you half-breeds will there to enjoy it!"**she told them.

The hybrids glared, snarled, and growled at the magi, except for Ramkot, who was still cool under the tension. **"Confident, aren't we? Very well, fliers, take out the trash that's hovering up there. The rest of us will be killing off my family that's down there,"** he spoke his plan. The winged hybrids flew up to attack Atlas, while the land ones went to assassinate Flarina and her daughters.

Even though, the fliers were coming at her like jets, Atlas was prepared for it. She cast her wind aura that blew away the hybrids like leaves in the air, the moment they got within proximity. She cast her wind blades spell at the multicolored hybrid that cut into his wings' membranes. Now one would think that because of the damage, the feline could hardly keep his without feeling hurt from his wounds. But because the blood from their fallen comrades had added more aggression and determination to kill to the hybrids and weakened their reasoning and logic as a result, the multicolored hybrid paid no attention to his condition and retained his flight. The two human hybrids mindlessly with persistence tried to get past the wind aura with futile results. Atlas cast her ice spears at the two and killed them through the torso. Then she turned her attention to the gray hybrid, who blew his tornado breath at her, which hurled her across the air. **"Aarrrrr!"**

Flarina's thin tail grabbed the black hybrid by the foot, tripped her, and threw her away. Then the wyvern hybrid pulled over the whiptail's wings to reveal the frightened hatchlings, who screamed and shrunk back in terror. But fortunately, their mother was here to save them. So she breathed fire into the wyvern's eyes, causing the hybrid to back away in pain as she yowled from the burning blindness that was hurting her as well as the flames that covered her from head to shoulder. Flarina covered back her daughters before the white hybrid got back up. Then the creature ran up to Flarina and stabbed her deeply into the shoulder. The red whiptail let out a loud roar of agony, which caught Atlas's attention. **"Flarina!"** she cried. Out of anger, the magi flew over to her sister and cast her earth spear spell at the white hybrid, which was the last thing he saw before his untimely death. Then Ramkot got onto his mother's back and slashed her with his black claws, sending poison into her blood system. The red dragoness started to feel weak and feverish from poison. **"Flarina!"** Atlas cried after noticing what just happened. She turned to glare at her nephew and growl, **"You! What did you do to my sister?!"**

The red hybrid snickered and answered, **"I poisoned her with my claws. The gene of the bright-breasted wyvern gave me the poisonous claws which I was born with. Within a few minutes, she will die and then you and her brats will be next!"**

Suddenly, everyone heard an angry roar and looked to see a black dragoness lashing her tail from side to side and her wings flew open to make herself look intimidating. Anger coursed through her veins making her blood seem to boil, her aggressiveness was rising with each moment that passed making her more lethal for held back his snicker as he scratched Flarina again and said, **"Oh look, another one. I suppose she has a death wish, too."**

**"Get off of her!"** Atlas snarled firing her fireball spell at him. But as usual, the hybrid leader got off of the whiptail and evaded the attack. The flying hybrids flew down towards the black dragoness. Atlas cast a wind aura spell on Flarina from having the other hybrids attack her again. Then she cast fireballs at the wyvern hybrid, who got burned, and the black hybrid, who dodged her. Taking note of their fast speed, Atlas used her ice stream spell to have it travel across the land and freeze the ground into ice. The black hybrids ran towards Atlas, but then she slipped on the ice and fell down. The wyvern, still in pain and unable to see, also slipped. With them down, Atlas shot ice spears at the females, killing them both.

The black dragoness wasted no time in her attack; she launched herself at the gray hybrid with tremendous speed, barreling out of the way of his tornado breath. Once in range, her claws dug into the hybrid's side as her fire cloaked fangs sank into his shoulder blade, burning the flesh around the bite wound. The gray yowled out loud as he got bitten and burned. After she let go, the gray clutched his burn and hissed in pain. She swung back to be faced with yellow fireballs; the circular flames found there mark as it singed her underbelly causing her to screech in fury. Her crimson eyes flared with hatred as she spewed scorching blue flames from her jaws, aiming for the multicolored hybrid's face to inflict a temporary blinding status. The multicolored hybrid got blinded and hurt by the fire and flew around aimlessly as he roared. With the slight opportunity, the black dragoness landed beside the whiptail inspecting her injuries, she snarls with alert when she catches the strong scent of poison already in effect on the wounded dragoness. The gray hybrid went to retaliate by swooping down to the black dragoness and trying to bite and claw at her.

Atlas and Ramkot growled at each other as they walked in a circle, trying to get around the other. **"Look at your friends, half-breed. They all dropped down like the flies they are. How come you guys were built to slay dragons, but yet couldn't kill me? Huh?!"** Atlas growled.

**"That's because they were weak. But unlike them, I'm the strongest. Stronger than any hybrid, human, or dragon in this pathetic world. You won't find me easy to kill, lizard,"** Ramkot boasted.

Atlas brushed that off and said, **"Hah! That's just talk! If you want to prove something, you have to kill me!"**

**"Very well, I'll be glad to,"** said the red hybrid grinning sadistically.

The black dragoness twisted herself around to be slashed across the face by the hybrid's talons. The scar across her eye tore open again, blocking out her vision with the thick red liquid. She stumbled back roaring in pain as the gray hybrid sank its fangs deep into her neck. The black dragoness grabbed the hybrid's tail and tore him away from her neck, slamming him against the ground and knocking the breath out of him in the process. Her vision was clearing a little but the blood still blocked most of her vision. The black hissed, surrounding herself in a storm of blue flames as a protective barrier around herself to prevent the hybrid from getting too close. As this bought her some time, she watched both the leader hybrid and the magi dragoness carefully. The hybrid got back up and charged towards the dragoness without thinking about the blue flames around her body. As a consequence, he started burning and roaring in pain the moment he went through the barrier.

The dragoness took her chance to grab the hybird and throw him into a tree where his skull got hit. Now that he was fallen and stunned with dizziness, she spewed out blue fireballs after another to bombard and further torch the creature repeatedly. He thrashed around with each long scream filling the air as the flames melted away his fur and scales. Soon his vital organs decomposed thermally and the gray hybrid was no more.

Atlas cast a wind blade at Ramkot, who dodged to the side, but then slipped on the ice. With the hybrid down, this time the magi was able to hit him with another wind blade and another and so on. The cuts scratched him, but they didn't go deep enough to draw blood. Ramkot pushed himself back up and taunted, **"Hah! You can that a spell? All I felt were feathers tickling me."**

**"What?! You gotta be bluffing!"** Atlas yelled. She cast another wind blade at the hybrid, who fearlessly stood his ground and let the spell hit him on the golden part of his chest. The spell had left no scar on him what-so-ever.

Ramkot laughed and said, **"I'm not."** He separated the hairs in his fur to reveal golden scales beneath. **"You see my golden scales? They're from the genes of the gold dragon implanted within me. Gold dragons have the strongest scales of all the breeds of the world. They reduce a lot of damage dealt to them, which is the reason why humans hunt them down to obtain their pelts and make protective wears such as helmets, bulletproof armor, pads, and such. That's why your puny little spells can't hurt me."**

**"Then why the hell did you dodge if you know my spells weren't going to hurt you?!"** Atlas yelled.

The smirking hybrid answered, **"I just wanted to have fun messing with you, that's all. Of course since I've now revealed this little fact, I think it's time to stop playing around and end your pathetic little life."**Ramkot jumped at his aunt, who struck him first with her earth spears. He got hurled back and hit with minimum damage done to him in the form of soft throbbing pain. He took up the earth spear and threw it back at her. The sharp end of the rock struck Atlas on the foreleg when she tried to evade the counter-attack. Ramkot ran at her in a dashing speed faster with his black claws reaching out for the poisonous touch on the magi. Atlas was not quick enough to react and defend herself from her nemesis, but an untimely fireball came to her rescue as it struck the hybrid in the eyes.

**"Aaaahhhhh! No, my eyes! They're burning!"** screamed Ramkot as he swatted painfully at his own green eyes to put out the fires that were torturing him. He may have golden scales to protect his hide, but there definitely weren't any on his eyes for sure.

The magi looked to her dying sister, who was the one who spewed out the fireball. The poison seemed to have taken its toll on her by the way she looked weak with her breathing being slow. The whiptail gave her sister one last smile before her head fell down and her eyes closed into eternal slumber. **"Flarina, no!"** Atlas cried desperately.

The hatchlings poked their heads out from their mother's arms and shouted, **"Mommy!" **The whole family was supposed to reunite together again and go on to live at John's homeland, but tragically that happy ending was never going to happen.

Atlas turned her head to glared at her nephew with more hatred and anger than ever. Ramkot had taken away her sister and robbed her nieces of their parents. He was going to pay and Atlas would make sure he damn will. Summoning up lots of magic energy for a devastating spell, Atlas's body began to glow into a flashing light so bright, that the hatchlings had to turn away and the black dragoness to shield her head with her wings to avoid getting blind. Energy particles made their way to the magi's mouth to charge up the spell source. After energy particles were built up, Atlas was now ready to cast the spell. _'Now die!'_ she thought as if she was speaking to Ramkot. The light beam shot out of her mouth into Ramkot and obliterated him into ashes. Apparently, golden scales weren't strong enough to shield anyone against a powerful spell such as the light beam.

Now with the last of the hybrids gone, Atlas went over to her nieces who were trying in vain to nudge their parents awake. **"Come on, mommy, wake up,"** said Danielle, who was pressing her paws into Flarina's neck.

**"Wake up, daddy!"** said Kylie, shaking John's head back and forth. **"Why wun you get up?"**

The magi looked at her nieces in silence with pity and sadness. How was she going to explain this to her innocent young nieces without hurting their feelings? **"We'll have to to tell them the truth,"** said the black dragoness walking up next to Atlas in a melancholic tone.

Atlas turned her head to her and murmured seriously, **"What? Are you kidding me? They're just kids! They're too young to know this stuff!" **She didn't want darken their bright and happy view of the world; that would kinda ruin their childhood.

The black countered back with reason, **"But they just saw their parents get killed in the fight, did they not? Plus we even killed those savages ourselves. Now that they've seen death, it's time for them to understand it. We have to tell them that their parents aren't coming back."**

The stranger seemed to have a point; there was no use hiding it anymore. So with as much regret, Atlas went over to the hatchlings, hoping that she could soften up the truth to a white lie or least just a little. Danielle looked up at her aunt and asked, **"Aunt Atlas, why won't mommy and daddy get up?"** She looked desperate for help in reviving her parents.

The magi sighed quietly and replied, **"Because they can't... Because they're never coming back to us again."**

Kylie raised her head and asked, **"What? Why not?"**

**"Well it's because..."** Atlas's eyes shifted away from the hatchlings as she tried to think of what else to say.

After a few seconds of pausing, the whiptail hatchling asked, **"Because what?"**

**"Because..."** the aunt said before the black dragoness walked up next to her to finish the sentence.

**"Because your mother and father's souls are now among the stars,"** the stranger said.

**"Da stars?"** asked the sisters simultaneously.

**"You mean dhey're dead?"** asked Kylie, looking hurt with tears about to form in her cute black eyes.

The black's interruption had given Atlas an idea on what to say, much to her appreciation. **"No, no, they're not dead! They're just alive in spirit, kids. Their bodies may not move anymore, but they'll be watching over us from sky at night, making sure that both of you are being good hatchlings. Though you may not hear them, they'll always be with you,"** she said.

**"Really?"** asked Danielle.

**"Really. So don't you two cry, because remember that they're always alive, no matter what! And no one, no matter how hard they try, is ever going to kill them,"** the aunt said with a smile.

The hatchlings, now no longer feeling sad, replied, **"Okay."**

**"Now look to the stars and say hi to your mommy and daddy, while me and the other dragoness make graves for your parents so that the wild animals don't eat their bodies,"** said Atlas. She used her earth magic to open up the ground and make big enough holes to fit Flarina and John.

The sisters looked up at the dark starry sky and waved to it. **"Hi mommy! Hi daddy!"** they said.

The black dragoness pushed John into his grave, while Atlas did the same with Flarina. The magi looked down at her sister one last time for as many seconds she could take. She closed her eyes and paid respected to the departed as she prayed, _'Goodbye Flarina. Your daughters and I will miss you. Say hi to our parents and everybody we know up there for me, will you?'_ Then she sealed up back the earth to finish the grave. The magi turned to the stranger and said, **"Thanks for all you've done here."**

**"You're welcome. I'm glad we were able to save the hatchlings, but it's too we can't say the same thing for your sister and her mate,"** said the dragoness.

**"Yeah, it sucks that some things in life don't go the way you hoped for. Well I got to go find the kids and I a place to sleep and eat our dinner at. You take care out there, alright?"**

**"I will. I hope the rest of your night goes well."** Then the dragoness flew off.

Atlas looked at her nieces and said, **"Come on, girls. We're going to find a place to camp out for tonight."** She put her nieces on her back and flew off to look for a cave. She spotted one in the mountains and went inside. This cave had a hot spring inside for a nice warm bath and relaxation. She put the hatchlings down inside before she left to go retrieve the hybrids to feed herself and her nieces. It was too bad that Ramkot was dust now, because she wanted to eat him and share his pieces with her nieces as pay back for what he had done. Using the mental image of the cave she had seen, the magi teleported herself and the hybrids there. The hatchlings were taken by surprise at their aunt's sudden appearance into the cave like that. They were also curious as to why she had brought these dead monsters home. **"Eat up, kids! These scums here will be your dinner for tonight."** Atlas took up the wyvern hybrid and ate her. The nieces looked at the dead bodies hesitantly as the sight of them brought back bad memories and fear. The aunt noticed them standing still and encouraged them, **"Relax kids, those half-breeds are dead. They aren't going to hurt you. You can eat them."**

The whiptail hatchling went up to the green-scaled human hybrid and sniffed him a little. Then she took little bites of the flesh and ate them. Seeing that the hybrid didn't move; the Danielle grew more confident eating her enemy. But Kylie, on the other hand, didn't bother to eat and said, **"Aunt Atwas, I can't eat dat kind of meat. Can I have fwuits instead?"** Some dragons were carnivores while others, like the balloon hatchling, were herbivores.

**"No meat, huh? Well let me go see what I can find for you out there. I'll be right back,"** said the magi before she took off out of the cave. She used her fire aura to light her way in the darkness as she flew over the trees, looking for any that bore fruits. Soon she found an apple tree and reduced the flames until they were only on her head frill. She landed on the ground and checked the apples to see if any of them were fresh. There were a few that had holes on them made from insects feeding on them, but the others were fresh and safe to eat. Atlas tore the fresh fruits off the trees and carried them in her mouth back to the cave. Upon arriving back home, she dropped the four apples in front of her biped niece and said, **"Here you go!"**

Kylie took up two of the apples and started eating them. Atlas froze the other two for tomorrow, before she picked up the gray and black hybrids and ate them. Then froze the others in long-lasting ice to preserve theme for tomorrow. Now with their bellies full and the devoured hybrids were now bones, the family went to sleep. Because of her sister's death, Atlas has developed an immerse hatred for hybrids. Tomorrow morning, she was going to find that lab and destroy every scientist and hybrid there, that is if the captured slaves didn't get to them first.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I have edited this chapter and replaced the animal hybrids with the part-humans ones, since I like the latter idea better. You can look on my Deviant Art account to see the new hybrids.

John and Ramkot (c) me  
Zee (c) Zanzibar79  
Darkness (c) DarknessDragon197


	5. Blind Hatred

**Chapter 4: Blind Hatred  
**

Kathia sat by one of the trees as her mind was lost in despair and shock about the loss of her home and most importantly, her family. **"Mom... Daddy..."** she whispered to herself. Images of Mr. Rittevon being eaten alive and Mrs. Rittevon getting burned down would haunt her tonight and everyday from now on. Her throat choked with sobs being very quiet at first until they gradually became louder to the point where Kathia was crying and wailing.

**"Miss? Are you alright? Are you hurt?"** someone girl looked up to the concerned voice and through watery eyes, she saw what looked like a white hybrid holding a damp cloth to his nose standing in front of her. He had black hair with a similar colored mane running from his neck to the tail tip, long ears that stood like a rabbit, light blue eyes, a black chest and black toes. Now scared out of her wits, she started sobbing out louder, thinking that this "thing" was going to kill her like the other dragons. The hybrid slowly moved a bit closer and said, **"I'm not going to hurt you..."** He paused when three men, who have heard Kathia's cries, came by to see what was up with her.

**"Hey, what's going on over there?"** one of them asked. Then when they saw the hybrid, they all got alarmed and cried, **"Oh shoot, it's another dragon!"**

The other man said, **"Hang on, I'll chase it out of here."** Taking out a knife, he walked up towards the hybrid swinging his knife and yelled, **"Scram, dragon! Get your butt out of here!"**

**"Nnngh?"** the hybrid groaned momentarily, cocking an eyebrow at their initial reaction and tilting his head slightly in a misunderstanding head-shake. Then he caught the man's wrist with his free hand and held it firmly.

The man was taken by surprised and murmured, **"What?!"** He tried to twist his hand free in hopes to get himself away before the creature would attack him, but it was futile under the hybrid's strong grip.

**"I'm trying to help, thanks. I'm not a dragon... not exactly..."** the hybrid trailed off, giving the man a slight shove back as he released him.

**"What?! Not a dragon? Then what are you?"** the other man asked as they were all confused. Maybe he was just some guy in a costume? But it looked too real to tell.

The hybrid stared at the men blankly for a moment before answering, **"I'm a mechanic."** He looked back to Kathia and answered, **"I came out of the shop and saw everything go crazy... I heard her crying and thought she might be hurt..."**Then he moved in front of the girl and crouched down to her level. **"So, are you alright?"** he asked again.

Kathia heard, but hadn't listening to everything, due to being lost in her grief. So when the creature got near her, she backed away and cried, **"Get away from me!"**

The hybrid shook his head and picked up one of her hands, holding it firmly in his, yet not to hurt her. His other hand lightly pet the top of her head. **"Hey, hey. Just calm down. You're alright,"** he said quietly, seeing she had no major injuries. **"What happened?"**

The girl immediately calmed down when the creature didn't mean any harm to her. **"Dragons... they killed my parents. They ate daddy and they kill my mom with a fireball,"** she told her story. **"They were everywhere; they killed our guards and servants and burned down the neighborhood. It was horrible!" **

Everyone felt pity for the teen after listening to her little tale. The hybrid looked around and saw that the crowd was starting to thin as the main horde of people and dragons had already fled. **"We should probably move then. Are you okay to walk, or do you need assistance?"** he asked.

**"I'm fine. I was lucky not to get hurt by those horrible beasts, but... I just wish the same thing for my parents,"** said Kathia before she walked in the direction of where the other humans were going. When she got to the new camp, the humans had set up what tents they had carried for some, but not all the people to sleep in tonight. She went in line to get herself registered as a refugee and to get a free sleeping bag, provided there were any left. Luckily she was able to get one upon registration and found an empty tent that looked it hasn't been occupied. She went inside and got inside the sleeping bag to get some rest for tomorrow.

* * *

The next morning, Kathia woke up to the smell of smoke outside her tent. Her initial thought was that the camp was being attacked by dragons until she heard no screaming, but rather people chatting with each other. She got outside the tent and that the cooks were only cooking breakfast for the survivors. The meal consisted of foods from the cans, which were sausages, beans, and veggies. The redhead joined the line and waited for her turn to get her plate and drink. After she got her breakfast, she sat by the tree and started eating her food. The meal wasn't savory as the home-cooked foods made by her chefs or the gourmet food from the expensive restaurants, heck it was pretty bland; but it was all she had to eat if she wanted to fill her stomach.

Kathia was now finished with her breakfast and soon her thoughts took her back to last night when the dragons broke free and viciously attacked the whole city. Memories of her parent's deaths haunted her and left a scar in her mind._'Why? Why did this have to happen? How did this happen? I thought we had it all to keep those damn lizards under our control. What went wrong?'_she wondered in disbelief. Her eyes looked off to the side and saw a few lonely children who were saddened by the loss of their parents, then her sight drifted to everyone else who lost their loved ones._'Those monsters took everything from us and left us with despair. This isn't right! No one should have to suffer like this! Not me, my parents, or other people for that matter,'_ the girl thought with grief that eventually grew into anger. She got up with her fists clenched and yelled, **"Those dragons won't get away with this! I hope they all pay for this someday; every last blasted one of them! One way or another, something or someone will have to teach those monsters a lesson!"** Then she let out an angry that caught the attention of the refugees, who wondered what was up with the redhead.

* * *

Atlas used fire magic to unfreeze some of the hybrids and the apples out of their icy cocoons. She cast fire aura around the hybrids to heat them to a temperature that was comfortable for the magi and Danielle to eat. The spell was weakened to harmless flames so that hybrids will be warmed up without getting burned black. The apples were left alone as they were fine for Kylie to eat cold. When the bodies were done cooking, Atlas dispelled the fire auras and served the breakfast to herself and Danielle.

Minutes after breakfast was over, Atlas put the hybrid bones to the side and turned to the mouth of the cave. Her nieces saw her leaving and wondered what was up. **"Aunt Atlas, were are you going?"** asked Danielle.

The magi stopped for a minute and answered gruffly, **"I'm going to tear down the lab that created the monsters who killed your parents."** After last night's event, there were a few things in mind that Atlas felt compelled to do to carry out her revenge: destroy the lab, kill the hybrids, and their creators who made them. **"I'll be back, girls. Don't leave the cave or talk to strangers while I'm gone,"** she told them.

**"Alright, take care, Aunt Atlas,"** Kylie said to her.

The dragoness flew out of her home and went to look for the lab. Unfortunately, the place was hard to find since she knew nothing of its location. _'Damn, this would be easier, if I could ask Flarina where the place is at. But she's dead... Grr! I can't wait to find it and when I do, I'll rip them all to shreds!'_ Atlas thought angrily. It took her about an hour to finally find the place she was looking for. The image of the lab, Flarina once shared with her, made it easy for Atlas to recognize; well almost. The building looked rundown with some of the windows being broken and a few holes on the walls from top to bottom. She landed at the door and broke it down with to get inside. The magi went through hallways and rooms to look for the scientists and their creations. She noticed that the place had been abandoned apparently as there were dust everywhere. Even more curious was the foul smell looming around in the atmosphere. She finally found a hybrid lying on her path, but it was a skeleton. _'Well good riddance! A good hybrid is a dead one!'_ the dragoness thought. Soon, she came across another skeleton of hybrid and one that belonged to a human. The further along she went, the more corpses she saw of the two species. _'What the heck? Did someone kill these things a long time ago?'_ Atlas thought. _'How and why?'_ If it was dragons, then they must have been lucky to rebel and free themselves from their enemies without the need for the Spell.

But how wrong she was, because as soon as she entered the room where the slaves used to be kept, she found many dragon skeletons. **"What?!"** the dragoness gasped. Looks like they were behind the massacre. Territorial as some dragons were, it was highly unlikely for at least the strongest slave to go against everybody. And what would the humans gain by betraying their fellow scientists? Atlas came to the conclusion that the culprits were hybrids. The proof of that was the small claw marks she had seen on the walls, on the tables, and on the equipment. _'It was probably Ramkot and his friends that did this,'_ she thought._'Well they're dead now, but what if there are others out there?'_ She couldn't bring her nieces outside to play yet, unless she knew for sure that these monsters were extinct. Perhaps she should check the whole lab first, in case there were hybrids here. Atlas went to search around in every place until she caught a scent that was almost draconic. Thinking she found the hybrid, she decided to call to lure the creature over to her. **"Alright you mangy half-breed, come out wherever you are! I'm a hybrid-slayer who's here to rip you to bloody pieces like you did with everyone else here!"** she challenged.

After a long while of searching the whole lab, Atlas found no living being. She went back to the lobby room she entered from and was about to head out the door, when a small golden dragon came out of the shadows and asked, **"Who are you?"**

**"I'm Atlas,"** the magi answered. **"Are you one of the lab's slaves? What happened here? I came here to destroy the hybrids and scientists, but everyone around here is dead."**

**"No, I just hid here since last night... everyone lost their minds and went on rampages,"** the dragonet said idly. He looked around at his surroundings and made a quiet snort of laughter. **"This place has been abandoned for years. Everyone is dead. Rumor was that a hybrid rampaged over the place and destroyed everything. Even the computers."** Then he introduced himself, **"Name's Akuma."**

**"Well your rumor's probably right, Akuma, because those dead guys seem like they were done in by a hybrid. I encountered 10 of them last night and killed them all after they took away the parents of my nieces."** The magi looked down and shook her head sadly and said, **"Those poor girls; they didn't need to lose their parents this early. They're only a month old."** _'And I didn't need to lose my sister this early after the Spell,'_ she thought. She looked back up and continued, **"I hope the hybrid who did this was one of the ones I killed. We don't need those blood-crazed killers running around outside."**

Akuma stared at Atlas blankly. He faintly felt his left eye twitch. His eyes narrowed slightly at Atlas as he responded coldly,**"Yeah sure. Anything else?"**

The magi noticed that tone and thought, _'What's his problem?'_ She didn't bother ask him about, so instead she answered his question, **"No. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a lab to destroy and burn down. So I need you to get out while you still can. I want to put an end to the place that created those monsters for good."** And to keep any human who wonders in from getting any ideas from the lab's secrets to make their living weapons; not that they could since the Spell destroyed all their technology.

**"Tch,"** Akuma huffed quietly, swinging his head to the side to vent annoyance. The gold dragonet walked past Atlas. **"Yeah, monsters,"** he repeated quietly as he passed her. With the winged hatchling gone out the door, the dragoness proceeded to get to the highest floor of the building from there, she started busting down walls to get to the insulators and thermal protections keeping the steel columns from getting burned by fire. She ripped them off and kept pulling more of them until she couldn't anymore. So she cut part of them off with her wind magic and let the other half fall down the interior tunnel. After that, she started casting fireballs everywhere in the room, igniting objects, equipment, and everything. Then she cast her strong fire beam spell at the unprotected steel column. She did the same process over again each time she went down a floor. By the time she was finished with all sections of the lab, Atlas came outside for fresh air. Her flames may not destroy the exterior of the lab, but at least she could do some damage to the interior. Next time, she was coming back with fuel to finish the job for good.

As she walked through the woods, she encountered what seemed to be a human boy with horns on his head. Atlas noticed that a particular scent that she smelled from him. Normally, humans and halflings would smell like humans; although halflings smelled a bit less than their purebred counterparts. This person had dragon scent on him, which means he was a hybrid. **"Oh great, another one. I better put him out while he's still asleep,"** she said to herself. Then she cast an ice spear at him.

But unfortunately, the hybrid woke up and saw the glimmer of a spear. He scrambled to roll over, narrowly missing being skewered. **"You again! You already interrupted my sleep once!"** he shouted at the magi dragon. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he calmed himself from his near-death experience.

**"What? That voice!"** Atlas murmured to herself as she recognized how the hybrid sounded. **"You're a hybrid?!"** she asked. She should have known Akuma was one after he sounded angry when she brought up the conversation on his species.

Akuma sat up and stiffened slightly.**"Yeah I'm a hybrid,"** he snorted.**"Suuuuuure, WE'RE the monsters, but you're the one going around DA DA-DA trying to STAB people!"** Akuma growled. He still felt tired, but that didn't stop his loudmouth from running nonstop.

**"Hah! Says you, the killing machine,"** the dragoness growled back. **"You were born for the purpose of slaying dragons. You even go into an uncontrollable killing spree when you smell blood. Someone has to exterminate you freaks before someone winds up dead."** She covered her body with the fire aura and continued, **"And I'm going to put you down for good!"** She casted fireballs at him.

The hybrid moved behind the nearest tree to use as a shield against the spells. **"Ah yeah, I'm the killing machine. Not the sadistic psycho bitch trying to kill me unprovoked!"** he shouted.

**"I'm a sadistic psycho, huh? Well what you do is no different when you go into Hunter's Mode. Killing dragons for fun, how disgusting!"** Atlas growled, remembering the stories from Flarina about how hybrids enjoyed their killing sprees. Pretty soon the tree burned down, but then a sudden bright flash of yellow engulfed Akuma and he rushed out from his spot in a lightning fast dash. They were like leaps as he had to pause for each dash. **"Hey! Get back here!"** the magi yelled. Her fire aura disappeared and was replaced by a boosting wind spell that increased her flight speed by having the winds blow behind her hard. She wasn't going to let the hypocrite of a hybrid get away and kill dragons at random. If he wasn't dead, then more people like Flarina and John would die.

**"Yeah sure, except you have a choice. I don't. That makes you the true psycho here! I don't know what you have seen, but I'm not them and blaming me for someone else's shit seems REAL fair!"** the boy shouted as he kept dashing.

**"Sure you say you're different, but how do I know you're innocent? For all I know, you could be lying to save your skin just so you can go back to killing in peace!"** Atlas yelled, distrustful of him. Soon she followed him into the ruins of the city, where the hybrid tripped over a small concrete obstacle on the road. He let himself flop to the ground, groaning in response to the feeling of hitting the ground. He shut his eyes and curled up again. _'Hah, looks like you're mine, half-breed. I'm going to make a popsicle out of you right now!'_ she thought, smiling inwardly. The dragoness was about cast her ice stream spell at Akuma to cocoon his body in ice, but then stony pillar rose above ground and blocked her way. **"What?"** The magi hovered back a bit as she stood frozen in surprise for a few moments.

Then she heard someone yelling, **"You've already been warned once! Your onslaught of the innocent will be tolerated no more!"** And with that the deadly red spheres launched towards Atlas.

**"Ahh!"** the dragoness cried while moving to the side to dodge them. She looked down and saw the human from last night. **"Oh, it's you again. Trying to help the hybrid, huh? Well listen human, if you get in my way. I'll have to take you down, too,"**she warned as balls of fire floated above her paws.

The boy didn't budge but instead rose his own hands up, balls of water forming above his palms. **"I am issuing one final warning to you, dragon. Leave this place or die,"** he warned. The human took a defensive stance, waiting for the dragoness before him to make the first move.

Knowing her fire attacks would do nothing against water, the magi cancelled out her fireballs and replaced them with ice spears.**"I'd rather die than let this killer run loose!"** she yelled. Then she shot down the ice spears towards the boy. She figured that if he was out of the picture, she would get to the hybrid without any problems.

Then a black-maned black hybrid wearing a blue scarf jumped on a wall next to the boy and breathed out magma to melt the spears. **"Hah, try a real hybrid. You've just been nipping at the heels of a weak dud. Kid no less,"** he smirked. **"And I thought my taste in prey was bad."**

A white-haired girl in a red outfit took cover behind a rock wall and said to the boy, **"Should have just jumped to killing the filthy beast in the first place. Obviously the thing is deranged and needs to be put down."** She holstered an arrow and shot it at Atlas's right shoulder. The dragoness let out a pained yowl in response.

The white hybrid, who had just moved Akuma to set him against a rebuilt building, moved around the wall and stood next to the others. He told the magi, **"You're outnumbered here. You're making chaos where there is peace. You should leave."**

Atlas pulled out the arrow and spat it to the ground. **"Oh now you're all in for it! You're going to rue the day you messed with me!"** she yelled. She cast a wind aura spell on herself and then she fired wind blades at the humans and hybrids. She handled ten hybrids before, so four enemies plus that sleeping hybrid should be easy for her.

**"Rue the day? Who even talks like that,"** the girl laughed. **"She really is deranged," **she continued.

A small spotted black dragoness with yellow wings, known as a mirror dragon, lunged forth from the right side of the boy and his allies, flame spilling from her maw to cross before the blades and under them. The fires heated the air the blades were constructed of and slowed their movement drastically, as well as projecting them upwards. Her front claws dug into the ground as she halted her movement, hind hips swinging around so that she faced the large magi dragoness, a snarl ripping from her larynx, accompanied by an underlying drone of a hiss. There was an odd light of mischief in her eyes as the dragoness focused lightly on the earth beneath the magi, partially amplifying the gravity below her.

Fortunately, the wind aura was there to dispel the blades and keep Atlas from getting cut by her own magic. The magi glared down at the dragoness and yelled sarcastically, **"Oh great, a human pet! Isn't that awesome? Now you listen here, midget. You're aiding the wrong side. Those humanoid creatures you're aiding aren't dragons; they're hybrids, monsters created by humans to be dragon-killings. They become even more savage and dangerous the moment they smell blood. So if you want your skin saved, I suggest you leave those scums along and help me kill them."** She didn't want to have to kill this misguided dragoness, because she might have gotten the situation wrong. The blood from her wound and on the arrow would cause the hybrids to go into hunter's mood at any second now, thus having the mirror see the error of her ways. But that didn't happen as the wind aura was keeping them from smelling the blood.

The insult of the mirror dragoness being a midget pierced her honed ears as it drove a bolt of fury into her brain. Jaws parted lightly as she bared serrated teeth at the other draconic figure, the tiniest of drones murmuring from her form. After a moment, though, the static amplified and several lines of electricity jumped from her teeth and up her features, jumping down the line of her spine in a quick series of jumps before fizzling out at her tail. Her talons sparked slightly and her tail lashed, the fans upon her head flaring and extending outwards, spreading with aggression as she hissed. The fact that she would not side with the Magi due to the grudge sown from the seeds of the insult was engraved deeply into her mind. With the exception of the growls trickling through her throat and the electricity still arcing over her form and across her spider-webbed garments, the witty creature was oddly silent.

**"You seem to know something about hybrids. But whatever you've faced before were shams. Jokes. Failed hybrids let go from pure pity. Good for you,"** the black hybrid sniggered.

**"Oh so you're the stronger hybrids, huh? Well good for me, because I'll feel really good once you two are gone!"** Atlas yelled with the intent to avenge her sister.

**"You're the only one making trouble here,"** the other hybrid scolded. **"We were trying to rebuild the city and you just came by trying to kill us. You're the only mindless killer here," **he continued.

The magi responded to the white hybrid, **"At least I'm doing this for a good purpose. Now die!"** The hybrids breathed their respective magma and ice breaths at Atlas, but she cast a wind beam at them breaths, blowing the two breaths back with powerful winds.

The hybrid brothers easily moved out of the way of the reflected attack. The white hybrid yelled, **"You are an evil being and everyone here can see right through you."** He scolded, **"You're the only killer here. Going after some kid. I don't know how you sleep at night."**

Suddenly, a jet of blue flames flew out of nowhere at the magi and died upon hitting the aura. Atlas looked to the side and saw the black dragoness from last night. Apparently, she too was siding with the hybrids as well. **"What?! You too?! What the hell is going on here?! Why would you side with me over these beasts who would kill you at anytime?! Did you not see how ruthless hybrids can be?!"** she yelled while still keeping her wind beam going at the hybrids' breaths. She was sure the black had seen and heard everything about the hybrids during the fight with Ramkot, so why pick the wrong side?

The young woman poked out again, firing three more arrows. The hybrid brothers zipped around at the same time, breathing their breaths on either side of the magi. Having gotten used to fast opponents after fighting hybrids, Atlas was ready for them. She intensified her wind aura and kept the attacks at bay. The black one jumped high with the attempt to slash at her with his claws, but he got blown back to the ground. Pieces of stone broke off from the boy's pillar and formed into three sturdy pikes of stone. **"Dragon, have you not seen how ruthless hybrids can be? Have you not seen how vicious dragons can be? Have you not seen the atrocities committed by countless humans? I could keep going until every race has been listed, would that give me a righteous reason to go, chase down, and slaughter any one of them? You cannot condemn the whole for the deeds of a portion."** The stone pikes rose up and one of them shot forward towards Atlas, while the other two stayed behind, still ready for use. The pike managed to break through the aura and stab Atlas on the wing, causing the dragoness to roar in pain. **"I have fought Albel, a hybrid may I remind you, and he has shown me mercy. Does this sound ruthless to you dragon?"** He launched another pike and stabbed her other wing, sending the magi down to the ground. **"I have been crushed by a building, only to be helped up by Fayt, another hybrid. You are misguided, and you're mind has been poisoned by hatred."** And with that he launched the final pike. Atlas turned to the side to avoid getting struck on the head; she took the hit on the side underneath her wing.

As the magi laid wounded on the ground as she glared back at her enemies as the mage's words rang again through her mind. He seemed to have a point as she had seen all that has happened last night but... Atlas pulled out the pike out of her chest and spat it on the ground. She said to the boy, **"Okay, so the hybrids have shown kindness towards you. But I bet that's only because they're human like you."**

**"Wrong again, miss. We're more dragon than anything,"** the white hybrid corrected. **"Only a small portion is human. So you've been attacking your own kin."** The magi let out an angry growl; how dare he called dragons kin to hybrids after all Flarina suffered at the lab and all the atrocities they've done to dragonkind? **"What's more, you try to blame us for something you do yourself. We were put in test tubes and forced to have a blood attraction. But I and others lead peaceful lives anyway. And then there's you. Complete free will and you still choose to act on your lust for blood. I nor do anyone else have to prove ourselves to the likes of a murderous dragon like you,"** he continued. **"They're helping because they're not stupid enough to blame the actions of one of a whole race. So what about you? Are you stupid enough to do that?"**

Atlas refused to answer "yes" to the question and let out a growl instead, because she knew she'll always hate hybrids and will want them dead. Plus she refused to trust the hybrid's pacifism. Like Akuma, he could have been lying to save his behind. If he wants to prove his innocence, he'll need witnesses. She turned to the two dragonesses and asked, **"What about you two? Have you seen hybrids who have done good deeds for you?"**

The black dragoness leaped down where everyone else was, looking over the hybrids. **"They don't have to do a deed for me just to prove that they're not "bloodthirsty" like you say they are. Sure they can kill without second thoughts, but is it truly their fault for it? It's something they cannot control, something beyond their power to stop."** Her crimson eyes stared straight into the magi's. **"I am not like most dragons, I accept hybrids for who they are, not what they do for it isn't their fault they act on the scent of blood. Even though I've seen what they can do my view for hybrids will not be changed."** Her lips curled into a snarl, a low growl rumbling in the back of her throat. **"I will NOT allow you to kill them, for they did nothing to deserve this cruel punishment. You'll have to fight me as well if you truly want to kill them!" **

Atlas snorted and pulled out the the other two pikes from her wings. **"Fine, if you're all dead set on thinking those things are innocent little creatures, I'll your take words... for now. But know this, half-breeds, if I find out that you're lying about yourselves, there will be no mercy next time. Sure I'll leave the "good" hybrids alone from now on, but any bad ones I find won't be spared. You have been warned!"** she snarled at everyone. Then she teleported out of the ruined city and vanished from sight.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Chapter 3 got edited to make Kylie eat apples instead of a hybrid, because I made a mistake of making her a carnivore when she is actually a herbivore. Also, I couldn't figure out how to edit Astyn the mirror dragon's part to remove her thoughts and feelings, so I just left it like that. Next chapter, we get back to Aeolus.

Akuma, Albel, Fayt, and Rika (c) Sai (a.k.a. Eveeoni at DeviantArt)  
Astyn (c) White Wolf of the Snow (a.k.a. wwots at DeviantArt)


	6. No More Lab

**Chapter 5:** **No More Lab**

After his nap, Aeolus woke up and blinked the sleep out of his red eyes. Then he got up and left the cave. He saw Rina here in the village. **"Oh Rina, so I see you've come back home to pay your respects to your clan or perhaps for a different, yet similar matter,"** he said. Somehow he wasn't surprised to see her here, but it makes sense since this was her clan's home.

Rina turned her head to him and replied, **"I've already paid my respects to the dead. And usually we burn the bodies instead of burying them, but still, thank you for your help."**

**"It was the least I could do," **said the dragon. Then he asked, **"So what brings you here?"**

She answered, **"I came here to visit my chieftain's cave. I suspect that there are more survivors of this disaster."  
**  
Aeolus asked, **"You really think there might be?"** Perhaps it was possible that they might have fled to save themselves from death.

**"No,"** replied Rina, turning and taking a path to the chieftain's clan, but not before she stopped after a few steps. **"To be honest, that day I was deep in sorrow and rage, and my mind was clouded with a desire to avenge the dead. But after I put the Curse on that human, I remembered that I didn't see El-Naise at all. And I think that perhaps she left behind at least a hint about the survivors."** The dark-blue dragoness sighed, looked at the cave the disaster dragon emerged from, and added, **"By the way, the cave you took a rest in belonged to our clan medic. You can take anything you want from there, and I do recommend to do so, just in case."** She continued to the chieftain's cave.

**"Well thank you, Rina. I'm pretty sure that whatever's inside would help me in on my journey to the woodlands,"** Aeolus replied gratefully. The dragon went inside the clan medic's cave and looked around for helpful items. He noticed some medical herbs off to the side as well as a few magic crystals. These supplies would be helpful in case he got hurt, sick, or drained of energy. Aeolus took up the items and left the cave. He went up to Rina and asked, **"So what will you do now, Rina?"**

The wind dragoness stopped in her tracks and turned around to look at Aeolus. She paused for a short while before she replied, **"When I'll check the cave... I have no idea. For my whole life I was unable to travel anywhere, as the others needed me here. Maybe I'll go travelling to find a new purpose for myself..."** She looked to the side and finished, **"Or one day, if El-Naise and some others are still alive, we'll try to rebuild our clan... but much later, after everything settles down."**

**"Very well, take care, Rina. Maybe one day we'll cross paths again. Good luck finding El-Naise and the others,"** Aeolus said before he left the Eternal Wind village. He took off into the air and flew over the desert land. It was going to be a long trip to the woodlands and it might even take days to get there, if it was too far away. But with the supplies he had to help him, his journey would easy until he ran out of them.

* * *

Atlas was far away from the city in the forest, where she was now licking the wounds where the pikes had stabbed her. She couldn't go back to the spring cave looking like this; that would make her nieces worried. **"Stupid bleeding heart fools! They better know what they're doing,"** she growled to herself. When she tried to move her wing, a sharp pain was felt and she folded her wing still to not hurt it any further. **"Damn it, it's going to be a while before I started moving again. Maybe I should go back to the spring cave,"** she said, changing her mind. She licked her wounds to disinfect and soothe them.

A white female dragonet came out from the corner of a tree after tracking the scent of blood she smelled. **"Oh my, are you alright?"** she asked after noticing the wounds.

Without looking at her, the magi replied bitterly, **"No!"** She didn't mean to sound curt, but she was upset about having to come out hurting after surrendering and making a promise that she might regret later.

**"Well, sorry for upsetting you, miss,"** the dragonet apologized as she was taken aback. **"I was just worried, because I smelled blood and came here to check."** Then she asked, **"What happened to you, anyway?"**

**"Hybrids..." **Atlas answered with a growl. **"Hybrids, humans, and a couple of ignorant dragons! They have no idea what's going to happen to them if they continue to let those monsters loose!"** she snarled, thinking of the lab and its fate.

**"Hybrids?" **The dragonet quivered with fear at the sound of the name. **"You mean those dr-dragon killers?"** she asked.

**"Yes, I mean them!"** the dragoness answered. **"If I were you, I'd stay away from the human city, because that's where I saw those furball bastards!"** she warned for the sake of the white's safety.

The dragonet nodded slightly and replied, **"O-okay, I will."** Then she looked at the wounds and felt a obligation to help the magi out. **"So can I heal your injuries? I'm a white dragon,"** she asked.

Atlas looked to the winged hatchling and noticed her ivory pelt color. The timing couldn't have been more perfect; white dragons were known for the best healing magic of all the dragons breeds around the world. Their only flaw though, was that they couldn't bring back the dead. **"Well that's good,"** Atlas gladly said. She stood up and showed the dragonet where got stabbed. **"I need you to use your magic here... there... and here,"** she said pointing her head to each spot.

**"Alright, I'll get to it."** After Atlas sat back down, the dragonet went to the left wing hovered her paws over the area. She channeled her healing magic to her paws until they glowed in a soothing light blue aura. Then she let the energy flow from her paws to the wound and closed it with reformed flesh until the wing looked brand new again. She did the same thing to the other wing and the side.

Now that she was no longer in pain, Atlas stretched her wings in relief and joy at being able to move again. **"Thanks kid, I owe you one!"** she said.

The dragonet smiled and modestly said, **"Oh it was nothing. I would have done the same for anyone, really."**

**"Well, aren't you a good kid,"** the magi said, smiling at her. **"It must be nice being able to help out everyone you meet."**

**"Well yeah, it is,"** the dragonet replied, recalling everyone who thanked her.

**"Well I got to be going now,"** the dragoness said as she got up again. **"I got some things that need to be taken care of."**

**"Okay, be careful not to get hurt next time,"** the white told her.

**"I promise,"** Atlas said before she walked away from her. The dragoness's mind ponder her thoughts on what to do next. She thought about her nieces' well-being in these woods, knowing the hybrids were free to roam about. She could keep them at the spring cave for a long time until they were grown up, but the magi felt they needed to play outside and that keeping them sheltered for safety that long wasn't a good idea. She thought about moving far away from this country to keep Danielle and Kylie safe. But the new place she was moving to had to be a place best suited for their breeds.

Magis were capable of living almost anywhere, but from what she knew of whiptails, they only adapted well to forests. She knew that after her early life in the Solomese desert where both her half-whiptail father got hot too often. He did used to live in the woods until he met their red mother and decided to go live with her. But the question of where balloon dragons thrived was a mystery to Atlas. Flarina had met John out in the woods after he got bought out of slavery by a friendly human being. But for all she knew, he might have been exported out of his original habitat. She wondered if her fellow slaves knew about balloon dragons.

Atlas formed a telepathic bond with all her friends and asked, _'Hey guys, got a minute? This is Atlas and I want to ask you guys about balloon dragons.'_

The replies she got were _'Sure, what is it?' 'Ask away!' 'I'll tell you anything you want.'_

Snively, who was also taking part in this conversation, asked, _'What do you need to know about balloon dragons?'_

The magi asked, _'Okay here's the story, my sister Flarina and her mate got killed by a bunch of hybrids.'_

The moment she said that word, a bunch of replies came like this: _'Hybrids?!' 'Oh no...' 'I'm sorry for your sister, Atlas.' 'Aren't those the dragon-killing monsters?'_

_'Yes, they are. And thanks for your sympathy, guys. So anyway, I killed those hybrids and got left with my two nieces to take care of, but then after I burned down the lab or rather the inside of it, I found another hybrid. I tried chasing it down to kill him, but then I ran into two more hybrids and a few humans and dragonesses who tried to defend them,'_ Atlas continued.

Everybody wasn't surprised at the humans helping hybrids part, but dragonesses were a shock. _'What?! Why on Veleia__would they help them? I mean they're dragon-killers for crying out loud!'_ asked Snively.

_'Because apparently, the hybrids to them are "innocent", trying to live peaceful lives or so they claim while I'm the "bad guy" for trying to get rid of the problem,'_ answered Atlas and snorted. _'So I decided to let them go for now so that they can learn their lesson on why hybrids shouldn't be around. Though it will probably be too late when those half-breeds go into hunter's mode.'_

_'Are you sure you should be leaving those things alive?' _asked a dragon, who didn't like this decision. _'I mean it's better to end them quickly before someone gets hurt, no matter what anyone says.'_

Most of the other dragons agreed, except for two who weren't so quick to judge on species. _'I... don't know if you should be so quick to judge all hybrids based on what they're created for. I mean if they did say they were peaceful and those two dragonesses were trying to protect them from you making a wrongful kill, doesn't that mean the hybrids may be good?'_ asked another dragon.

_'Oh gods, not you too,'_ Atlas mentally groaned.

_'Well he's got a point, Atlas. We shouldn't be so quick to judge them until they do something bad. That would be like trying to kill that human who freed your brother-in-law just for the fact that he's... well... human,'_ said a dragoness.

_'Well if doesn't matter if they're good or not. I just can't let my nieces play around outside while those half-breeds are running amok. You all know they go berserk at the smell of blood and I don't want Danielle and Kylie around them while they're in hunter's mode. That's why I decided to move out of this country and go somewhere safe. So now on the question; does anybody know where balloon dragons live?'_ she asked.

_'I do!'_ Snively answered. _'They live in woodlands where they can get all the fresh fruit they want.'_

_'Thanks, Snively,' replied Atlas. 'So does anyone know of any countries in Rudvich that has forests?'_ She would have gone to Solomos's forests, but she never seen them before. So teleporting there was out of question.

_'My ancestor lived in the northwest region. It's a nation full of trees, Atlas.'_

_'Well good, now I can make the journey there. Thanks guys, you've been a wonderful help,'_ the magi said gratefully. Then telepathy was disconnected. Now that she had her destination in mind, Atlas decided to do one last thing before she took her nieces and fly off; get some explosive fuel and burn down the exterior of the lab.

Atlas took off into the air and went back into the city. She didn't care if she ran into those hybrid-friends, she wanted to come here to get what she was looking for. The magi flew over ruins noticing that humans were trying to rebuild their broken city. It wasn't any of her concern, because now that the humans were robbed of their advanced weaponry, they were powerless to fight a dragon. Of course, there was still a small problem with medieval weaponry, but they weren't as difficult to fight against the modern weapons. So Atlas, being a very strong dragon, would have no problem fighting against those weapons. But human mages on the other hand may be a challenge. The humans could still use magic, and if they want, they would used that power to go back to enslaving and hunting dragons. _'I guess we better come up with a Spell that can disable the humans' magic as well,'_ she thought, concerned. Maybe Aeolus would come up with a plan for that. She'll have to ask him later, though.

When the humans saw a magi flying in the sky, they screamed and ran away to go hide. Atlas didn't bother with them; she was glad to have the humans fear her and let them know not to mess with her. The dragoness saw a gas station that looked very much destroyed by an explosion. _'Well damn, I guess I better check another place,'_ she thought. Then after a minute later, she found another gas station that was this time wrecked instead of exploded. Maybe there was gasoline there. Atlas landed at where the fuel tanks were and used her ice stream magic to form a shape of a large bucket and solidify it. She took out one of the pumps and pulled the trigger to pour fuel into the bucket.

After the ice bucket was full, Atlas carried it off out of the city and flew over on her way to the lab. There she was going to look to see the condition of the lab after she set fire inside. Had it burned down to the point where the flames were now outside? Was the lab completely burned down? Or was it still burning inside? The dragoness couldn't wait to get there to see how it fared.

She got her answer when she saw the lab was still on fire. The flames had now reached the outside of the thick stony shell. Atlas flew high above the blazing buildings and poured 2 quarters of gasoline on each section of the building. Explosions boomed and damaged the lab even further, breaking chunks of the building and reducing them to ash and rubble. The magi landed on the ground and used her ice stream magic to carry the rest of the gasoline to the base of the lab and bomb the floor. Now with the lab near to its complete destruction, Atlas retreated back to the city to fetch more gasoline.

After returning to the gas station, the magi dragoness refilled the bucket once more. She had thought she was going to get out of the city no trouble what-so-ever, but it didn't take long for the humans to see what she was doing. **"Oh jeez, it's a dragon!"** cried a man.

**"What's it doing at the gas station?"** asked a frightened woman.

**"It looks like it's taking the fuel for free,"** said an angry man. **"Hey beast, the gas station isn't yours for the taking. Scram! Shoot! Get out of here before we-"** Atlas didn't give a crap what the humans thought of her theft, so she glared at them and let out a loud scary roar.

The people backed away in fear as Atlas yelled, **"Shut up, you hairless apes! You shouldn't be talking now that your guns and tanks don't work anymore! But if you're going to keep threatening me, be prepared for a bruising, monkey!"**

A human mage entered the scene and asked, **"What seems to be going on here?"**

One of the men pointed to Atlas and answered, **"That dragon's trying to get away with the gas she stole from the fuel tanks. She has to be stopped!"**

**"Don't worry, I'll take care of this beast!"** the mage said before he cast his spells at the dragoness. Atlas shielded herself and the bucket with her wings and got hit on the pike wound. She winced and gritted her teeth in pain before becoming enraged at the offense and countered with a light laser shot at the mage, who got blasted back. Gasps filled the air as humans looked in shock and worry for the wounded man that tried to stand against Atlas. The dragoness ran over to the mage and tore his head off with her teeth. The spinal cord came out with the head as well and she spat them to the side. She dropped the headless, devastated body on the ground for all the humans to see.

**"Let this be a lesson for you, worms! Mess with me or any other dragon and this is how you will look when you wind up dead,"** Atlas warned, snarling at them. The humans panicked and ran away screaming. Now that the commotion was over, Atlas took up the ice bucket and flew back to the lab where she used her ice stream spell to the gasoline around the different parts of the lab and caused it to bomb down completely demolished for good.

Now all that was left was to put out the fire before it spread throughout the forest. Atlas used her ice magic to put out all the fires until now a tiny little ember was left remaining. **"Okay, my work here is done. All I need to do is rest and then I'll go on back home,"** she said, feeling glad about her accomplishment. She left the lab remains and laid down with her wings folded and her tail curled around her body.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I don't know a better title for this chapter other than "No More Lab".


	7. First Taste of Blood

**Chapter 6: First Taste of Blood  
**

After regaining energy for flight, Atlas stood up and spread her wings. She took off into the air and flew back to the spring cave. The sisters, who had been playing in the hot spring, saw their aunt return home. **"Aunt Atwas, you're back!"** said Kylie.

Danielle ran up to her and asked, **"Did you kill da hybwids?"**

Atlas shook her head and answered, **"No I didn't, some idiots want to keep them alive."**

**"Oh no!"** both sisters whimpered scared.

**"Why would they do dat?"** asked Kylie, not understanding why on Veleia would anyone protect these monsters.

**"Because they're stupid and don't know what they're bringing on to themselves."** the magi answered, growling. **"Anyway, we have to leave this cave to go to a new home. Climb aboard, kids!"** She laid down to let the hatchlings climb up her tail and get onto her back. Then the magi left the cave and took off over the woods. **"Now before we leave the Northeast region for good, we're going to go to your parents' graves and pay our respects one last time,"** Atlas told her nieces. The magi flew down into the part of the woods where John and Flarina were killed and landed right by the mounds of earth that held the deceased dragons beneath. The family said their goodbyes and wished them a happy afterlife before they went back into the air.

Danielle had one question, **"Aunt Atwas, what is da Northwest like?"**

The magi replied, **"I don't know, Danielle. But when we get there, we'll know."**

* * *

Kathia was now going into the city ruins. Earlier, she had heard in camp that humans were going into the city to reclaim their possession and try to rebuild the city. The girl walked all the way back to her mansion, hoping to retrieve the sword that had been passed down from generations to generations. With it, she could use it to get her revenge on the dragons and slay them all. It a long time to walk there and eventually she reached her burned down home. Kathia rummaged through the ashes and debris hoping to find what she was looking for. Eventually, she found it. The redhead smiled sadistically and murmured to herself, **"Hee hee hee! With this weapon I have, I will slay every last lizard in this world and make them all pay!"** Of course she didn't know how to swing a sword yet, but at least she could practice her killing moves on her first victims; hatchlings and pygmies.

The first step to becoming a dragon-slayer was complete; now what she needed next were a shield and some magic spells to learn. Ever since the modern era, magic has gradually been used less and less as technology became more dominant for human use, leaving dragons as the majority in the magic field. In fact, most people today don't even know how to use magic as it had been lost in history. So when Kathia saw a few mages pass by earlier, she could not contain her surprise. But it was a good thing to see, because that would mean more power to kill the damned beasts. The girl rummaged through the ruins once more and picked up her family shield. Then she left the place and went to one of the mages, hoping to learn some attack spells. **"Excuse me, sir. I'm looking to learn how to use magic. Can you teach me after you're done?"** she asked.

The mage declined and said, **"Sorry kid, I'm a man who's busy all the time. Why don't you find somebody else?"**

The girl felt a bit disappointed and walked away from him. She tried asking the other mages, but none of them were willing to help her. Kathia got mad and gave up trying to learn from them. **"****Fine! Maybe I'll find some way to teach myself!"** she huffed. Yes, that was definitely what she was going to do, if those stupid mages won't teach her. Maybe she could find spells on the internet or in a spell book later. For now, the girl went to the forest to look for pygmies and hatchlings to kill.

The redhead wandered through the woods looking everywhere for her first victim. It took her like 18 minutes until she found a yellow pygmy eating a squirrel he caught. Smiling sadistically, the girl walked up behind the pygmy with her sword ready to kill and her shield ready to defend against its attacks. As she got closer to him, the tiny dragon felt her presence and looked back to the hunter about to attack him. He jumped back out of the blade's path and spat a fireball at her, which she blocked with her shield. She lowered her shield and then quickly raised it back up when the pygmy tried to jump at her. Kathia tried to shake him off, but the dragon got to her face and started scratching her. **"Eeek! Get off! Get off!"** she screamed. She blindly staggered around, dropping her two equipment, as the dragon kept biting and clawing at her. After half a minute of struggling, the girl grabbed the creature by his wings and took out her dagger. The pygmy spat and snarled as he thrashed at the air in front of the hunter. Kathia laid him on the ground as she took out her dagger and stabbed him right where it kills. The dragon's eyes closed and his body became limp and cold. Kathia had made her first kill.

The girl picked up the dead pygmy, grinning evilly at her victim and said, **"I am going to turn you into a brand new purse later!"** She carried the pygmy off with her to go look for others to kill. The girl trekked through the woods until she found a clan of dragons in sight with some hatchlings. Not being ready for this many dragons yet, Kathia retreated and continued to look for easier targets. This time she saw a winged hatchling that was flying a bit low above ground. The hunter hid behind a tree before she jumped him and pushed him down against the ground. The hatchling struggled to get her off, but Kathia raised her sword and sank the blade down from the back and into his heart. Another life was taken in cold blood.

She left her second victim on the ground as he was too a bit too heavy her to carry around. The redhead went to look for some more dragons to slay and found a sleeping black dragoness. Although she wasn't experienced enough to take on a dragon that size, the dragoness being asleep would leave her very vulnerable to unsuspecting attacks. Kathia laid the pygmy on the ground and walked quietly over to the dragoness. She raised the blade above the head and tried to stab her through the skull. Unfortunately, the dragoness woke up to the human scent and her body shifted slightly as she opened her eyes. She could react to the oncoming attack. When she tried to move her head out of the way, the sword met its mark as it sliced the side of her neck. Blood flowed out of the wound and stained the grass a dark crimson. The black dragoness screeched in pain, her eyes locking onto the enemy with a furious glare.

Kathia now regretted her attempt at assassination. Her heart raced with fear and her stomach churned as she slowly backed away from the dragoness. **"Oh God, no!"** she murmured. Then she turned and ran away for her life. She did not want to die before she got to learn how to use magic to fight dragons with. With a roar, the dragoness thundered after her, racing through the forest to catch up with the girl. Kathia never looked back, but she could feel the presence of the dragoness behind her. She wanted to run faster and leave the beast behind, but this was as fast as her legs could carry her. Suddenly, the black beast made one swift jump and landed in front of her, blocking the girl's route to escape as her tail lashed from side to side in aggravation. Kathia let out a frightened scream as she was now face to face with the black dragoness. The creature's wound on her side was worse, blood drained from it at a quicker rate than before creating a small crimson pools at her claws. The dragoness stepped closer to her a low growl rumbled in her throat. Seeing as she couldn't outrun the creature, Kathia had no choice but to fight for her life if she was going to escape death. Holding onto both her sword and shield, the hunter pointed her blade at the dragoness and threatened nervously, **"Back, beast! D-d-don't make me have to kill you."**

Stopping in mid-step the black dragoness froze, her gaze shifting from the blade in front of her to the human's eyes. Taking one step closer, the dragoness faced the girl, wincing at the throbbing pain in her side. **"Why would you try to kill me?"** she challenged, her crimson eyes narrowing at the human.

**"B-because..."** Kathia answered nervously. While trying to find words to answer this question, the hunter recalled her reason for becoming a dragon slayer and how she felt pleasure in killing two dragons. Her fear turned into hate and her eyebrows furrowed as she answered maniacally, **"Because I like kill to dragons!"** She swung her sword at the dragoness and again for another hit. If she can accomplish killing a full-grown dragon with just a sword, she can take on a whole world of them. She would then tell people how she slew a dragon like a knight did in story books and then give rise to an army that would reclaim their slaves and take revenge against them.

The creature's eyes widened in surprise as she tried to evade the attack, but her timing was slow. Her pained roar rang out as the sword sliced across her shoulder. Blood trickled down her night-black scales, coloring the grass a thick, dark red. Stepping back, the dragoness hissed. Her mouth unleashed searing hot jets of blue flames at the hunter before her, her eyes blazing with fury. The first few inches of flames managed to get onto Kathia as she raised her shield to block the rest of the fiery breath. The teen girl screamed in pain from the blue fires searing her skin and clothes. She dropped her sword and slapped down the flames. Her hands burned whenever she tried to put out the fire, but it was better to save herself than continue burning. When she was no longer burning, Kathia took up her sword again and tried to run around the dragoness. She went to try and stab the dragon's side.

The dragoness stood on her hind haunches and leaped back to avoid the swords damaging blow. She landed slightly unbalanced, due to her new shoulder wound that continued to throb and bleed. In a self defense attempt, the black surrounded herself with a fiery vortex, keeping close attacks from doing any damage. She watched the hunter closely, her eyes never leaving her. The girl backed away slowly keeping her eyes on the winged reptile and tried to figure out her next plan of action. She could throw her sword at the dragoness, but that would be losing her one and only weapon. She circled around the dragon to look for an opening, but the fire wall had turned out to be a protective circle of flames to keep the hunter from coming in close to attack. _'Damn it, now what am I going to do? I can't get in close and I can't throw anything at her. What am I suppose to do, stand watch here all day, waiting for her to kill me?'_ she thought, not liking and wanting to go through with the last 'suggestion'. For now, she would just keep her shield up and wait for an opening to attack.

Taking this time while the hunter was held at bay, the dragoness inspected her wounds, most were deep and would most likely leave a scar. Her gaze fell off the human when she twisted her neck around to lick her side wound, wincing in pain as she cleansed the open gash. Taking advantage of the monster's distraction, Kathia backed away until she turned tail and ran. Maybe now that she's inflicted some damage on the dragoness, the monster would be slowed down by its wounds and allow the hunter an easier escape back to the city. Or better yet, camp would be where she needed to go to get her burns healed since there were doctors, nurses, and other medics to heal the survivors of dragon fire. Kathia's arms, hands, and upper part of the torso hurt as she ran. Maybe her own wounds might slow her down too, and if that dragoness caught up to her, she could always fight again.

After running far for what seemed like a while, Kathia's throat and chest felt lump with exhaustion. She stopped and panted to catch her breath. The girl looked behind to see if the dragoness she tried to kill was chasing her. There was not a silhouette of the big black beast anywhere in sight. Feeling relieved, Kathia decided to take five for a short while before she would continue on back to camp. She couldn't stay for long though or the dragoness will come back to attack her. After a good three minutes, the black dragoness came out of hiding and slowly padded up to the girl. **"Eek!"** Kathia screamed in alert. Taking up her sword and shield, the hunter yelled, **"Damn dragon!"** Then she went to the dragoness and thrust her sword at her before she backed away in case the beast tried to surround herself in flames again. This time, Kathia was staying here to fight for good until one of them ends up dead. And if she was lucky, the dragoness would probably retreat after taking much damage.

The black hissed and side-stepped away from the huntress before the sword could make contact to her hide. With a leap she ascended to the sky, hovering in spot for a while before attacking. With a strong stroke of her wings she raced towards the human, jaws opening again as she shot out bursts of blue flames at her opponent, scorching anything in its path. Kathia raised her shield over herself and blocked the burning attack. No way was she getting set on fire again after being burned. She held on against the flames until it over. And when that happened, the huntress would go in for another strike against the dragoness.

Seeing that the fire had no effect, the dragoness roared and glared at the girl below her. In a swift motion she launched herself at the hunter, her claws ready to tear into the girl's flesh as she raced towards her at a high speed. As soon as Kathia let her shield down to see what the beast was up to next, she got clawed deeply down from the chest and onto the side of her abdomen. **"Ouch!"** she yelped as blood started oozing out. Kathia clutched her wounds as she winced and glared at the dragoness. She retaliated with another swing of the sword at the underbelly. The blade ripped deep and long, making the blood flow out at a rapid pace.

The creature crash-landed on her side; her wings somewhat torn from the ungraceful landing. The black dragoness breathed heavily as she was losing blood rather fast, unable to move for she could make matters much worse by straining herself. Her eyes locked onto the girl's; the crimson orbs filled with sorrow before she closed them and waiting for the human to strike. Kathia held herself in pain for a few seconds before she walked over to her unconscious foe. With her blade raised up, she made one final thrust at the side in an attempt to end the beast for good. **"Hiyah!"** she yelled. The blade sunk in and she let it sit there for a few seconds before she pulled it out and walked away from the dying dragoness. She looked back for a while to make sure the beast didn't get up to pursue her again. The dragoness made no movement or attempt to get back up again; she eventually disappeared from sight after the girl moved farther away. Kathia turned around and looked at the path ahead of herself. She clutched her claw wound to stop the bleeding and gritted her teeth in pain. But nonetheless, her mind was filled with pride at the aftermath of the heated battle. _'I can't believe I did it. I put down a dragon bigger than me,'_ she thought. It was a scary fight, but if Kathia can win against a large creature, she can take on any dragon in the world. But of course, she'll need to learn magic to make her next hunts easier. Once she gets treated and healed, magic will be her next step in becoming a dragon-slayer.

The teen finally made it back to camp, where a few people saw her bleeding with burns on her body. **"Oh my god, what happened?!"** asked a shocked woman.

**"Dragon attack... I tried to fight her off and she did this to me,"** Kathia answered before she groaned in pain as the wound stung her.

**"Somebody get her to the medics, quick!"** shouted a man. One of the men helped Kathia over to the hospital tent, where she was laid on the bed. The nurses put medicine on her burns and wrapped her wounds with bandages to stop the blood loss.

* * *

**Auth****or's N****ote:** We've just witnessed Kathia's first step in becoming one of the major villains of the RP. Or she could be the only Big Bad Evil Guy, if there's no one else to add conflicts.


	8. The Quest for Home

**Chapter 7: The Quest for Home**

Aeolus was now farther into the desert. He laid down beside the small lake and drank water to quench his thirst and cool his body down a bit. The dragon rested in the water for a while until his body had enough energy to resume his journey. Aeolus got out of the lake and took off into the air to resume his journey. Hours later, he saw a forest on the horizon of the grassy plains and flew eagerly towards the woodlands over a clan of running whiptail dragons. He reached his destination and landed in the clearing between the trees. He had now found his homeland, but the only thing need to do left before he could truly start his peaceful life as a free dragon was find a home somewhere.

* * *

Kathia finally made it back to camp, where a few people saw her bleeding with burns on her body. **"Oh my god, what happened?!"** asked a shocked woman.

**"Dragon attack... I tried to fight her off and she did this to me,"** Kathia answered before she groaned in pain as the wound stung her.

**"Somebody get her to the medics, quick!"** shouted a man. One of the men helped Kathia over to the hospital tent, where she was laid on the bed. The nurses put medicine on her burns and wrapped her wounds with bandages to stop the blood loss.

* * *

As soon as the huntress was out of sight, the black dragoness managed to stand on her feet, her body was shaking violently from losing blood. With one unbalanced step she collapsed back onto the ground, her body too weak and mangled to move. The sight of her was awful. Dirt and blood was smeared across her black scales and most of her hide was torn from the girl's sword. She closed her eyes once more and prayed for someone to save her from this agonizing state. With a final attempt of someone helping her, Darkness reached out with telepathy to anyone that would be willing to help her, hoping that someone hears her plea.

* * *

The Firestars had traveled for like a good 25 minutes after they left the graves. They stopped next to a river to drink and take a short rest. That was when they heard a distress call in their minds; it was the black dragoness from before and it sounded like she was badly hurt. As Atlas thought about whether to help the dragoness or not, she remembered how the black helped her against Ramkot's gang and how she went against her to help the hybrids. She was quite thankful for having her niece's lives saved, but she was still upset at the fact that she allowed the other hybrids to live. Despite the latter, Atlas believed the black was a good dragoness who may have been misguided about the hybrids. So the magi came to a decision to help and replied,_'Hang on, I'll be there.'_

Getting up, she looked down at her nieces, who had stopped drinking when they heard the distress call. **"Aunt Atwas, we have ta go help da dwagon in twouble,"** said Danielle, concerned and wanting to do the right thing. Kylie nodded in agreement with her sister.

**"I know, and that's what we're going to do. Come on, we have a life to save,"** the magi replied. Her nieces climbed onto her back and the aunt walked through the woods until she heard a song that sounded like 'lalala' and hums. The trio approached some more until they saw a halfling-like figure with pink skin, black horns, a black tail with pink underneath, fuschia wings, magenta hair, black dragon feet, and she smelled of dragons, too. **"Hybrid,"** Atlas growled under her breath. Setting her nieces on the tree branches for safety and hidden under the leaves, she told them, **"Stay here."** Then she walked towards the hybrid. She saw green glow around the hybrid's hands over the the black dragoness's wounds, but failing to noticed that she was being healed. She would have impulsively gone to attack the girl, remembering her vow to her enemies at the city, she decided to interrogate the hybrid for answers on as to what happened before she could have an excuse to go in and attack. Once near the two, Atlas growled, **"Alright, what happened?! Why is she hurt and bleeding to death? Did you do this, half-breed?!"**

The girl turned to see the magi and cocked her eyebrow. **"Would seem a bit counter-productive to attack and then heal someone, wouldn't it?"** she asked, rolling her eyes and before she went back to healing.

The magi growled, **"Not if you went into hunter's mode in the first place."** That was probably what happened; the hybrid went berserk and then attacked the dragoness. Maybe then the black would listen to the magi about hybrids being dangerous.

The hybrid laughed and shrugged as she said, **"Don't mean to bust your bubble, but I'm quite harmless even in my hunter mode. I have a bit too much white dragon in me, see."**

"But that doesn't mean that whites aren't capable of fighting back, stupid!"

Atlas countered. It was true that white dragons were pacifists by nature, but if they were driven into a corner, they would use their strength to fight back. **"And about you, being a white dragon. Yeah right!"** the magi yelled, not falling for the obvious lie. **"If you had a lot of white genes in you; you'd be white, not purple! I still you're behind this, you uncontrollable freak!"**

**"But I didn't do this to her!"** the hybrid cried defensively. **"She was like that when I got here!"**

**"Really now, huh? Let me here what this dragoness here has to say before I take your claim true,"** said the magi, not believing the hybrid. Then she looked to the other dragoness and asked, **"Hey you, what happened here and how did you wind up injured and all that?"**

After all her wounds were healed, the black dragoness walked over to Atlas and stopped just a few feet away. She told her story, **"I was in a quarrel with a huntress for she attacked me out of cold blood while I was resting. Seeing fit I chased after her hoping to injure her enough to leave me be, but the tables turned and she had the advantage with her sword leaving me in a devastating state. Knowing that I was close to fainting if not death, I called out for anyone who could help."** Her tail flicked towards the purple hybrid. **"She had nothing to do with my accident as previously stated, she came here because of my plea just like you did."**

**"So the humans have resorted to weapons from their past. This is unbelievable!"** the magi mumbled to herself. Then looking at the pink hybrid, Atlas figured that she might have been right about not being able to attack in hunter's mode. If she could, the black dragoness would have been dead by now. **"Alright, I believe your story. But why those damned scientists made you without a hunter's mode, puzzles me,"** said the magi.

The girl shook her head. **"Ah no, I have one. I'm just one of the 'duds' running around. My killer genes were a flop. Which I guess is a good thing by anyone else's standards,"** she said, looking around.

Before Atlas could say anything, a familiar and hostile voice sorted, **"Oh look, the sadistic psycho bitch. Shouldn't you be spitting on puppies?"**

Atlas turned her head around to glare at Akuma, who had came into the picture with a mouse on his human head. She growled at the hybrid and said, **"Shut up, half-breed! Go play with your damn rat pet or something!"  
**  
Akuma smirked at the rat comment. He slowly started to chuckle until he burst out laughing. **"Hear that? You're my pet rat,"** he said smugly to the small animal. Atlas was puzzled by the hybrid's jeer at the rodent and wondered what was the meaning of this. Apparently, it seems like hybrids don't have respect for animals either.

The mouse narrowed its glaring eyes and stood up straight on its hind legs. **"Who you calling a Rat you psychotic monster!"** Continuing to stare down the dragoness it leaned forward, using one of Akuma's horns for support as it did so. **"Why don't you leave before I have to hurt you again?"** the mouse threatened.

Atlas was surprised to hear the rodent talk. Its voice sounded quite familiar too. **"Oh let me guess, you're that human boy from the broken down city, aren't you? If you want a fight, I'll be happy to deal with you!"**she growled as her body became ignited with fire aura.

Back at the tree, the nieces watched their aunt afar and Kylie whispered, **"What's going on?"**

Danielle replied back in a whisper, **"I dun know, but I think Aunt Atlas is going to have a fight."**

Before any move was made, the black dragoness stepped between them and roared, **"Enough! Now is not the time to settle differences."** She looked at the blazing magi. **"If you are done investigating the situation then I suggest you leave. I thank you for coming to my assistance but another fight should not break out so soon, settle your differences another time. I'm sure the two of you have other important things to do than fight each other anyway."**

Atlas's fire aura disappeared and she grunted, **"Right. I wouldn't want to waste my time here with a puny little pipsqueak rat human. I got things to take care of."** She walked away from everyone and went back to the tree where her nieces were. **  
**  
The boy-mouse stuck his tongue out at the leaving magi and called out after her, **"Come back when you learn more than a few kiddy spells! Maybe I can show you what real magic looks like then."  
**  
Atlas growled at the mouse's taunt and thought, _'Don't tempt me, chimpanzee. If you want me stronger than ever, you're going to regret what you have just said.'_ Boy, would she loved to do things to the little brat such as stomp him into a pancake, burn him to ashes, or eat him up like prey. Once she gets to the Northwest region, she would take the opportunity to learn a lot of magic spells that she never got to learn as a slave. Then after Danielle and Kylie grow up and become independent, she would return to the Northeast and beat the human at his own game of magic. Yeah, that would show him!She made it back to the tree. **"Come on, girls, let's go,"**she said as the hatchlings jumped onto her back. The magi walked off through the woods and resumed her journey for the Northwest region. Then she sent a telepathic message to all the dragon slaves she knew in her life and said, _'Hey guys, I just learned that magic isn't the only weapon the humans have resorted to. They're also using swords and probably some other old weapons to kill dragons as well. If you see one of them attacking you with those, get ready to fight for your life.'_ As soon as her warning was over, dragons started spreading word via telepathy to tell their friends and brethren to be on guard around such humans.

Snively, who was badly disappointed, moaned,_'Oh... And here I thought we were going to live in peace for the rest of our lives. Now those humans are trying to kill us again.'_

The magi replied, _'I know how you feel, pal. One of their wizards attacked me and a hunter nearly killed a black dragoness. It looks like even without their tech, those scums won't give up dragon-hunting anytime soon.'_

* * *

Aeolus had found a bunch of dragons that were building up a village specifically for their own kind. They were digging holes in the ground to form caves and tunnels. Trees were melded together with hardened mud and dirt to form entrances and covers over the holes leading to the tunnels. The green dragon approached the villagers and some of them turned their heads to see the newcomer. **"Aeolus?"** asked a familiar navy blue dragon in surprise.

**"Hello Bam, it has been a long time, hasn't it?"** said the disaster dragon, who was glad to see to see his distant cousin was still alive.

**"Yeah, we haven't like seen each other in so long. I always wondered what you looked like now,"** said Bam. **"And now here you are, a grown handsome fellow,"** he said, eying his cousin's appearance.

Aeolus chuckled and said, **"And I can say the same thing about you."  
**  
The blue dragon felt complemented and replied, **"Gee thanks!"**

The disaster dragon looked at his surroundings and said, **"I see we're rebuilding our civilization already. This is a good thing if we want to defend ourselves from the humans and their medieval weapons."** Aeolus had caught word of the news after Atlas told him and several others spread the news all over the world.

Bam nodded and said, **"Yeah, totally. Plus we're going to need to set some traps too, so that the humans don't get us."**

**"How so?"** asked the disaster.

The blue dragon pointed to pile of crystals where two dragons were infusing magic into them. **"See these crystals over there?"** he asked. **"You just go up to Lhove and Rivet and ask them to put your powers into the crystals."**

**"Understood,"** Aeolus replied. Before he could approach the blue-winged green dragons, Bam stopped him with a paw to his chest.

**"Wait, before you talk to them. You should let our chief know that you're here to help,"** the blue dragon said.

The green dragon asked, **"Where is he?"** Bam answered by pointing to the orange-winged light brown dragon, who was helping the others push the trees together. **"Thanks, I'll go talk to him."** Aeolus walked over to the village chief and asked, **"Excuse me, you're the village chief, aren't you?"  
**  
The dragon turned around and answered, **"I am. And you are?"**

**"Aeolus,"** the disaster answered simply.

Upon hearing the name, the other dragons close by stopped working and looked to Aeolus with interest. **"Aeolus? The same dragon who, along with Arcaon, invented the Spell?"** asked the chief.

**"Yes."**

**"Well it's an honor to meet you, o' savior of dragons,"** said the chief smiling. **"I'm Chief Doubloon, the leader of this village,"** he introduced himself. **"Well it's not a village yet until it's completely done."**

**"Which is why I'm here to help,"** said the disaster. **"I'm going to see if the Lhove and Rivet will put my lightning breath into the crystals. Then I can help out with other duties."**

Doubloon liked the idea and said, **"Ah yes, lightning crystals to zap the humans dead. It's quite more effective than flame breath if you ask me."**

**"Glad you see it that way, chief,"** Aeolus replied.

With a short nod, the chief said, **"Please do help out."** Then Aeolus turned and headed over to the two dragons.

As he walked, he was bombarded with telepathic questions from the other dragons. _'Wow, are you really the Aeolus who made the Spell?' 'How did you and Arcaon come up with a brilliant plan to free us all?' 'What does Arcaon look like? I want to talk to him, too.'_ Question after question filled his mind until he felt overwhelmed and annoyed.

Aeolus said out loud for everyone to hear, **"Enough! I'll answer your questions after we're done building our village."** The questions stopped coming, leaving the celebrity at peace.

The green dragon reached the Lhove and Rivet, one of whom stopped what they were doing to look at the stranger. **"Can I help you?"** he asked.

The disaster said, **"Yes, I'm here to give your crystals the power of my lightning breath." **

**"Okay, very well. Just blow our your lightning at the crystals I hold and we'll seal them inside,"** Lhove instructed as he picked up one of the empty crystals. Aeolus breathed in and blew out lightning bolts at the crystal. The object glowed with a light green aura as Rivet used his magic to trap the electricity inside.

* * *

After traveling for 60 miles, the Firestar family decided to take a rest. Danielle and Kylie got off their aunt's back and started playing with each other. Atlas looked at her little nieces and said, **"Don't stray too far from me. I want you both right where I can see you two."** As long as the hatchlings were nearby, Atlas would be able to protect them from dragon slayers, hybrids, and predatory animals on the hunt.

**"Okay, Aunt Atwas,"** they said. The sisters bat their paws at each other before Danielle pushed her sister over and pinned her down on her back. Kylie retaliated by kicking her feet into the whiptail's stomach to push her off. Soon the hatchling stopped playing when they noticed a figure in the distance. A young male human was laying face-flat on the ground.

**"Aunt Atwas, there's a human over there!"** cried Danielle as both sisters were scared.

**"What's that?"** asked the magi, getting up. She walked by her nieces and told them to hide behind a tree in case the human was hostile. The magi walked up to the blonde boy and noticed that he was armed with arrows and a quiver. Her first assumption was that he was a dragon slayer, but then she remembered her the story about the dragon sympathizer who freed John, who was armed like that boy but friendly. But just in case he really was a hunter, Atlas stood on guard and watched the teen's reaction for a sign of good or bad.

The blonde boy stood up and tried to clean himself from the dirt he had gotten. He checked the ground for a moment before he sighed in relief, **"Oh...good, there really isn't any dead bodies of those insects..."** He was just about to move when he saw the dragoness was near him. He stared at her for a bit before he cried out some unintelligible words in surprise, **"Gyablablaba!"** Then he fell back on the ground. **"Ah! Hmmmm!"** he said as he wiped out some more dirt after he got up. **"Well, at least its better than my pot sister..."** he muttered for a moment before focusing his attention back to the magi, who found him to be quite a klutz on the first impression. **"Ah, right, umm..."** the boy said as he instead slowly raised his left hand and made a peace sign with it.

Apparently, the guy wasn't hostile at all. But to make sure, Atlas asked in a calm, but firm tone, **"Speak up, human. What are you doing in this forest and why do have bow and arrows with you?"** She looked to the boy's weapons.

**"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh... wait... why did I bring my bow and arrows with me?"** the boy asked himself. **"Why... why... why, why, why, why, why...?"** He pondered for a bit, trying to remember his reason for his possessions. **"Maybe its for practice?"** he guessed. **"But I got bored very easily, so that's probably not it." **He guessed his second answer, **"Maybe it was for hunting? Hmm... but I didn't even need to eat... I don't count meat as snacks either... plus, it would take like 10 minutes to cook rabbit meat..."** He scratched his head and asked himself, **"Wait, why is their a dragon here anyway? I don't see them often..."** He thought for a moment. **"Maybe something interesting happened! Aww, that means I missed out..."** He sighed. Eventually, the boy just faced Atlas in silence for a few moments. **"I have no idea,"** he shrugged.

_'What a strange human,'_ the magi thought feeling awkward about the man. **"Well whatever... So human, you got any medicines and bandages to heal me with? Because these wounds here are slowing me down on my journey,"** she asked. During her travel, the family had an encounter with a bunch of men wielding spears and shooting arrows. She got stabbed on the shoulder, her hind leg, and took a few arrows on her back. Atlas disliked having to deal with pain while on the journey to the Northwest.

**"...A-actually, I don't have anything to heal you. The only thing I brought is my bow, my arrows and my quiver,"** the boy said, not reacting to the bloody wounds. **"Although I think there's an apple inside my quiver..."** He quickly took off his quiver and rummaged through it, dumping all of his arrows to see if there was an apple.

Atlas felt it was stupid and thought, _'How exactly does an apple heal me?'_

After finding no such fruit in question, the teenager said, **"Nope. Never mind, I don't have any apples. I'll refill my supplies of fruit later then."** Then he looked around. **"Maybe I should of put all my arrows in one place instead of dumping them and scattering them all over the place,"** he said as he started to collect them. **"Yeah, sorry, I, uh... don't have anything that would really help you,"** he said to Atlas calmly.

Atlas replied in disappointment, **"Oh, okay then."** Looks like she was going to have to carry on with her wounds... unless. **"Well what about your home? Do you have any supplies there?"** she asked. Humans always kept lots of their stuff at home, much like dragons do. Perhaps there was a good chance that the magi would be able to heal up there.

**"A-actually, I think I do have some supplies. Although..."** the boy said and sat against a tree trunk. **"T-t-that would mean going through my pot sister..."** He drooped his head sulkily.

**"Pot sister?"** asked the magi, wondering who this was. Was this 'pot sister' abusive or what? Maybe she will find out who the sister really is once the Firestars get to the boy's home.

The boy looked at the dragoness with a depressed face and lifted his hand slowly and "glitched" like a robot while doing so. He was about to say something about it, but instead just lowered his hand and just stared at the ground with a fearful and regretful face. **"S-s-s-she's... my... y-y-younger... s-s-sister..."** he stuttered like he was in terror.

**"Hmm... From the way you talk about her. I guess she's not a very nice person,"** said Atlas, as her assumptions were confirmed about the pot sister. **"Well don't you worry human or whatever your name is. If that sister of yours tries to hurt you, she'll have to answer to me, alright?"** she said. She was going to protect this friendly human from domestic abuse, no matter what.

**"She's nice to strangers, actually. She just hates me. Or maybe she's a Tsundere..."** the boy sighed. **"She does care for me... it's just that she has a habit of throwing soiled pots at my head whenever she has the chance... or maybe she'll hit me with a frying pan... "** he sighed again.

**'A sun-der-what?'** asked Atlas, having no clue what the strange word meant.

**"It just hurts so bad!"** He rubbed his head. **"The only good thing about it is that I get to mess around her... which leaves me with a frying pan mark..."** Then he said, **"Oh yeah, by the way, she likes plants. She's a flower addict, so don't bring her picked flowers, she'll rage."**

**"Well then, I'll go ask her so that you don't have to. Where does she live?"** asked Atlas, coming up with a solution just for everyone to get out okay.

**"Not too far from this forest, I think,"** the boy said.

**"Alright then,"** said the dragoness. Then she asked, **"Anyway, what is a tsundere? I've never heard of one before."**

**"Since you don't know what a tsundere is, it's basically a term to describe a female. Their are two types of tsunderes. The first type is a girl who is generally cold to males, or lovers. Those types eventually reveal a caring side and blush while at it; they try to cover it up though. Type two involves a sweet, kind and caring type of tsundere who later on becomes very bitter and mean at you, but still cares about you. Which type do you think fits her better?"** the boy explained and asked at the same time.

Atlas thought, _'Never knew there were female humans like that.'_ Then she replied, **"That's a good question, because I don't know that much. She's just a stranger to me. But I guess your sister might be a Type One, because I've never seen human siblings be nice to each other and then mean later on."** Some of her human families, who once owned her, had children who fought over petty things such as toys or made fun of each other, but then to some degree, developed tolerance of their siblings.

**"Haha, sisterly and brotherly bonds are like that. Smaller siblings are suppose to annoy you until you pretty much die, while the bigger ones are more mature and usually smarter,"** the boy smiled. **"To be honest, the reason why she's mad at me most of the times was when I played a prank on her at school. Flipped her skirt at the end of school and the first thing thing she did was punch my face. Ah, memories..."** he chuckled. **"Things would've been easier if I was a girl..."** he sighed.

_'She must be a Type Two then,'_ Atlas thought after listening to the story.**"Well probably..."** said the magi. Then she asked, **"So kid, what's your name, kid?"** She figured she had to know his name after learning some things about him. Danielle and Kylie had been watching and listening to the conversation the whole time. When no signs of hostility showed between the dragoness and human, the sisters thought that this boy was a nice human like the one who freed their father.

**"Henry,"** the boy replied before looking around. **"Tsk... I didn't expect this place to be so... fruitless. Then again, I come to this forest all the time, why have I not noticed this before?"** Henry hungrily licked his lips and said, **"If only this place was fruity..."** Then he stared at the magi for a bit before asking, **"So what's your name then? And where didja come from?"**

**"I'm Atlas,"** the magi answered. **"I was taking my nieces out of the Northeast region to go live in the Northwest, because I didn't want them getting torn apart by hybrids. You know, those upwalking bipedal dragons and those that look more draconic than halflings?"** Hopefully Henry wasn't going to berate her about her prejudice against hybrids like that annoying magical human boy did. But her reason sounded more like protective of the hatchlings than hostility on hybrids, so it was most likely that she wasn't going to earn any ire from him.

**"I didn't know there were such things as hybrids... Are they friendly?"** the boy asked.

**"Well some of them..."** Atlas replied grudgingly, while hoping he wouldn't get the wrong idea of placing himself in danger by trying to get buddy-buddy with those things.

Then Henry started to have a debate with himself as he ask questions that countered the others, **"Wait, the dragon said she was taking her nieces away in hopes that hybrids wouldn't kill them. Does that mean their aggressive? But shouldn't at least one be friendly to others? Hmm... what I want to know though is, how and why are they so aggressive if there aren't much dragon hybrids who aren't?"** He slowly moved his head to face the dragoness. **"Why are they so aggressive then?"** he asked.

She answered, **"The reason they're that is because they're born with the ability to go into hunter's mode at the smell of blood. Once they go into that mode, they won't stop attacking until you're dead. That's why I don't want my nieces around them in case they bleed."**

**"Oh, okay,"** the boy calmly said. **"Wait, you said you were bringing your nieces right? So that means..."** He started to scour around with his eyes to see if anything out of the ordinary. He didn't seem to find anything though. **"Huh, I guess it's either that you hid them in a very good spot or that its my eyes are just horrible at seeing and paying attention,"** Henry said.

**"Oh they're here alright. I just had them hiding somewhere in case you were a dragon slayer. I'll bring them out for you,"** Atlas said to Henry. Then she looked over to the tree and called, **"Danielle, Kylie, get over here and come meet Henry."** The whiptail and balloon sisters left their hiding spot and scampered over to their aunt's side. **"Henry, meet my nieces, Danielle and Kylie. Danielle's the whiptail with the black stripes and Kylie's the magenta one with the black face,"** Atlas introduced her nieces.

The hatchlings looked up at Henry curiously, wondering if he was nice or not. **"Hi,"** said Danielle, while her sister just looked on.

Henry waved at them. **"Aww... they're so cute! I wish I could take a picture of them on my home and send them to my sister... If I had one!"** he laughed. **"Man, I can't believe how technology seems to evolve over time. I never bothered to buy a phone for some reason."** He scratched his head. **"Heyo! I have totally forgotten your names even though they were announced a few minutes ago! Seriously, what are your names again?"** he asked them.

The sisters felt flattered when Henry called them cute. They smiled back and the whiptail answered, **"I'm Danielle!"**

The the balloon hatchling said, **"And I'm Kywie."**

The aunt laughed heartily, **"Yeah, they're cute alright. I can't wait to see what they'll look like when they grow up. I bet they're going to be beautiful."**

**"Heh, I'm sure they'll look pretty,"** Henry smiled and said. **"So... I dunno, have you eaten yet?"** he asked. **"Cause I now have almost nothing to say since I'm guiding you all to my house."** He laughed nervously.

**"Well we had breakfast this morning, but no lunch yet,"** answered Atlas.

**"Aunt Atwas, I'm hungwy,"** said Danielle, now having an appetite for food after Henry mentioned lunch. The magi, having heard the whiptail, felt that now would be a good time to eat.

Looking back at the boy, the dragoness said, "**Well you heard her. Let's go over to your place and..."**

Then Henry suddenly asked, **"Hey wait, didn't you say they were your nieces? Then where are their parents?"**

The magi started to look mad as her claws dug into the ground and growled quietly, **"They were killed by hybrids in cold blood. Those monsters would have gone after my nieces next had I and another dragoness not killed them first."**

Henry stared at the the dragoness, **"Oh. I guess the hybrids... were... well... aggressive."**

"That's why you got to be careful around them, Henry,"

warned Atlas. **"Don't ever go anywhere near them."**

**"Okay, got it,"** said Henry as he nodded. **"Why don't we try and forget this for now and distract ourselves then? Despair and regret probably won't help us except turn us into witches, if you know what I mean,"** He said and did a nervous smile.

Atlas agreed and said, **"Right, it ain't good getting my thoughts pent up about it now."** Henry started to walk towards his house and turned his head around to see if Atlas and her nieces were following him; they were.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I changed the chapter title to "Quest for Home" since the chapter isn't mostly about Henry. But if you got a better title let me know.

Doubloon, Lhove and Rivet (c) me  
Chi (c) Sai (a.k.a. Eveeoni on DeviantArt)  
Henry and Yukki (c) Jass


	9. The Anime Siblings

**Chapter 8: The Anime Siblings  
**  
**  
"So what are we having fer lunch?"** asked Danielle, wondering if they'll have squirrels, bears, or any other animals.

**"I dunno. Maybe Atlas can hunt for ya,"** Henry shrugged. He looked around to see if any prey was around. **"This is a good chance for you two could learn how to hunt in this forest,"** he said, smiling. **"Hunting rabbits could be your tier goal right now."** The boy used his free hand to comb his messy long hair a bit to tidy himself. **"What do ya think, Atlas?"** he asked.

**"Yeah, I'll definitely hunt. But my nieces, they're way too young to be doing any hunting at this age. I'll go see if I can get myself a bear and them some rabbits and fruits. I'll meet you guys back at the house,"** Atlas said. Then she went off to go do some hunting.

**"So Henwy, what is a house?"** asked Kylie, not familiar with the word.

**"A house is a term us humans use, meaning shelter,"** Henry explained.

**"Wow, is it wike a cave?"** the balloon hatchling, imagining the house to look like the exact same thing as a dragon's typical home.

The boy smiled and said, **"I see you little cuties here are not familiar with our terms. Although my house looks a bit different from a cave... it got... some... 'upgrades.'"** He quoted using his fingers. **"You won't believe how different it looks once you see it,"** Henry said. **"Trust me, it'll look different to you."** Then he told them, **"Ask me if you want to know more although some are hard to explain..."**

**"Okay,"** Danielle replied. **"What are upgwades?"**

**"Well... I dunno. It's just... different."** He shrugged, not knowing how to answer. **"To upgrade is to improve an object, changing it so it'll work better,"** he explained to the whiptail.

Danielle understood the term and replied, **"Ohh."**

Henry smiled and said, **"Yep!"** Then the boy asked, **"Anything else you want to ask?"**

Kylie replied, **"Nah, we just wan to see da house."** The sister were very curious to see what this house would look like.

The boy said, **"I think we're almost to my house. But let's continue talking. Let's see... hmmm... Uh... I dunno, do you...?"** He drifted off a bit. **"Uhhh... well... I really don't know... could you maybe talk about yourselves?"** Henry asked.**"It's alright if you think its a bit too personal... I could talk about myself if you want..."**

**"Sure! I wike ta wun awound and pway,"** said the whiptail happily.

The other sister spoke next with a smile, **"And I wike ta bwow up wike a bawwoon and bounce awound. It's weally fun!"**

Danielle said, **"When she does dat, I wike to toss her awound. Mommy and Daddy would pway with us, too."** Then she asked, **"Do you do anything for fun, Henwy?"**

**"Ohm. W-well... I guess I like to..."** The boy paused for a minute. **"I... I guess I like to hang out with my sister. Sure she's aggressive most of the times, but when she isn't, she watches movies with me sometimes, and we like to talk about the emotional times."** He smiled and continued, **"I suppose you can say having her force me to have me to cross dress is counted as "fun" also."** With a yawn, he said, "Archery and eating is fun too, I guess."

**"Wow, you do a wot of weird things, Henwy,"** said the whiptail.

Kylie asked, **"Yeah, are we going ta see you and you sister doing those stuff when we get ta you house?"** The sisters wondered what the movies look like, what cross-dressing is, and what archery is.

Henry laughed nervously with his face turning a bit red and said, **"I guess..."**

Danielle, eager to see the strange activities and how they're performed, cried, **"Oh boy, I can't wait to see what dey are. I bet dey're gonna to be fun!"** None of the sisters had no idea of what sort of monkey business that might happen in the house.

**"Our house should be very close now. Last time I checked, we lived somewhere in the forest!"** the boy exclaimed. **"My house is actually a bit small, so don't expect something ginormous,"** he told them as they strolled through the forest to get to his house.

The sisters looked surprised as Danielle said, **"Wow, humans live in fowests, too? I thought Mommy told us dey live in cities."**

**"Some people live in the forests, like me and my sister,"** Henry explained them.**"Most people would rather live in the cities though. I admit though, living in a city is usually easier than living in a forest."**

**"How so?"** asked the whiptail.

**"Well... I... don't exactly know why... it's just... easier to thrive in a city for us humans somehow,"** the boy said as he tried to explain. **"Being in a forest isn't so bad for me and my sister though. I get to relax and sleep outside when I have free time."** After a brief pause, he asked,**"Say, how will Atlas know where we are? Won't she have some difficulty on trying to find us?"**

Kylie answered, **"No she won't! We can use telepafy to show her where da house is. She'll find us dis way."**

Henry's eyes widened in surprise and exclaimed, **"You guys can do that?!"**

The balloon hatchling nodded and said, **"Yeah! We do it pictuwing who we want ta talk to in our minds and send our toughts to dem."** She pointed to her noggin.

The boy sighed, **"I wish I had those powers. It would be fun talking with other people in your mind."**

**"Yeah, we could get ta chat even when we were not awound, if you have telepafy,"** said Kylie. She wished humans had telepathy so that the sisters could talk to Henry all they want when they resume journey to the west.

* * *

Atlas poked her head past a tree to find a not a bear that she was hoping for, but a deer eating twigs. The magi stalked as quietly as she could to take the deer by surprise. But unfortunately, the animal sensed her presence not by sound, but by the scent it smelled. The deer quickly pranced off to avoid the predator. The magi ran it after with earth spears launching at the creature. She didn't want her prey getting away, so that she would have to go and look again. In her haste, the spears kept missing until it hit the deer in the leg. It fell down before it got back up to run away. The attack had closed the widening distance between the two. Atlas used her wind aura to speed up herself after the limping deer.

The dragoness finally caught up to the deer and clamped her jaws down on it for the kill. She ate and munched on the creature, tasting its savory flesh and blood. Then after she ate, the magi went to hunt for another animal to eat, since one deer wasn't enough for a 16-foot-tall beast like her. This time, Atlas found a couple of squirrels and killed them with ice needles. She carried the pair with her and soon found an apple tree. She picked off three of the fruits and walked on some more until she found a bear, an animal that one of the slaves told her was delicious. Putting the hatchlings' foods down, she charged at the big prey and the bear turn tail to run from its predator.

Atlas used her earth magic to raise a stone wall in front of the bear, which the prey crashed into. The magi caught her prey and devoured the bear to fill her belly. Now that she was full, Atlas licked the blood of her lips and pushed off the remains of the flesh between her teeth to swallow to finish the rest of second part of lunch. The magi took the apples and squirrels and telepathically call one of her nieces, _'Kylie, use your telepathy to send me an image of Henry's house.'_

The balloon replied in her mind, _'We haven't gotten to the house yet, Aunt Atlas. We just still going there.'_

_'Okay, let me know when you guys get there, okay?'_ said the aunt.

_'Okay, Aunt Atlas,'_ the balloon hatchling replied.

* * *

The human and two hatchlings looked straight ahead to see a small, brick house. It had a chimney and two windows sticking out from one side. Danielle looked at the building with interest and asked, **"Is that your house, Henwy? It looks neat!"**

**"I-is it?"** Henry said, sounding a bit confused and surprised.

**"Yeah,"** replied Danielle as her sister nodded with agreement.

The boy smiled a bit, looking content with the compliment. **"So...What do you think of Atlas?"** he asked. **"Do you think that someday you two may just be like her?"**

The whiptail replied, **"I like her. She's a nice and stwong auntie who keeps me and Kylie safe."** Even though, the sisters had only seen their aunt from last night until today, they already like her due to the stories about Atlas told by Flarina. **"When I gwow up, I hope I get to be stwong like her. She's a champion in dwagon tournaments. That's why she beat Wamkot and the other hybwids easily,"** Danielle continued.

Kylie piped, **"And I wike Aunt Atwas, too. I want to be wike her when I gwow up."**

**"I see. Good luck on becoming strong then,"** Henry said.

**"Thanks Henwy, we will,"** Danielle promised.

The boy looked at his house, which was now meters away. **"Oh, great, we're pretty much here at my house,"** he said. He faced towards at Kylie and asked, **"So I'm guessing you're showing Atlas my house now that we're pretty much here?"**

The balloon replied, **"I alweady showed Aunt Atwas da house. She's on her way wight now."** Then they went to the door and stopped before them. The sisters looked up at the boy, who suddenly looked hesitant and unhappy to be at his home. Unaware of his feelings, the magenta hatchling asked, **"Henwy, why are we standing outside? Are we gonna to go into da house or not?"** Without giving an answer, the human sighed and went to knock on the door.

Soon they heard a familiar voice from behind saying, **"Hey guys, I'm back!"** The trio turned around to see a magi dragoness approaching the trio.

**"Aunt Atwas, you're back!"** the sisters said at the same time.

**"Yep, and brought you all some food,"** said Atlas. She placed the squirrels and apples down by their feet. The whiptail went to munch on one squirrel at a time, while Kylie took one of the apples to eat.

Henry looked at the red fruits and muttered with a bit of envy, **"Lucky, You got apples..."** A doorknob was heard twisting and the boy looked to see his sister staring out at him. **"Hey Sis! Hows it goin..."** He was cut off and slammed in the head with a frying pan.

Atlas let out a silent gasp and the hatchlings stopped eating when they heard that banging sound and looked to the scene the girl had made, which made them uncomfortable. _'Whoa, she's scary,'_ thought Kylie, fearing that she might get hurt too if she angered the sister.

Henry rubbed his head from pain and shouted in confusion, **"What was that for?! I just came back!"**

The white-haired sister shouted back at him, **"You're late! Where the heck were you?!"** Her green eyes glared at him; it was obvious that she was pissed off. **"Baka! Baka baka baka!"** she shouted at him.

The boy exclaimed, **"What is the point of you hitting me?! It's seriously not going to help us at all!"** He was hit in the head by the frying pan again.

**"Well it helps me vent out anger! So it helps me a lot!"** the girl exclaimed.

Atlas decided to take a stand against this abuse and yelled angrily, **"Hey leave the poor kid alone! Just because he did something with your skirt, doesn't mean he deserves this kind of crap!"** She hated extreme punishment for something that didn't match up to the level.

The girl stopped doing anything for a moment and stared at the dragoness before glaring at her brother. **"Henry... you told her... about... that?"** she said, anger levels raising.

**"Erk!... Yes?"** Henry gulped fearfully.

**"Frying Hit!"** the sister yelled out and slammed the frying pan onto the boy's head with full force. The Firestars flinched defensively and shut their eyes tightly in response to avoid looking at that painful scene.

**"Owwwww!"** Henry moaned as the girl lifted the frying pan and went inside for a moment.

Danielle went up to the boy and asked in concern, **"Awe yew okay, Henwy?"** The dragons felt bad that their friend got hurt like that.

The boy forced a smile and made a peace sign as he assured, **"I'm alright... it... happens... every so often..."**

Soon she came back outside with a first-aid kit and sighed, **"Better fix your bleeding problems."**

**"What bleeding?"** the brother asked. This time he was suddenly hit with a soiled pot.

**"That bleeding,"** she replied.

Henry felt blood trickle down from his forehead and said in pain, **"Ohhh. That... bleeding..."**

Kylie looked at the red liquid staining the boy's head and got frightened. She clasped the sides of her face with her hands and cried, **"Oh my gosh, Henwy got hurt!" **

Atlas was about to grab the girl and scold her for hurting her brother and scaring her nieces, but didn't do anything when she saw the sister putting bandage around his head. She'll have word with her after this was done. _'And those_ bastards _in the city said that I was psycho. Just wait until they see this girl,'_ she thought.

Henry let out a sigh ad quietly asked, **"So... sis... how come you're angry at me this time...?"**

As she covered the forehead's bandage with the boy's blonde hair, the girl replied, **"You're late. And, I'm frustrated with the fact that the TV and all the other electronics aren't working..."**

**"What do you mean? Is there a sudden blackout?"** he asked curiously.

The girl nodded and said, **"Yep. And now I can't watch Puella Magi Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica..."** She puffed up her cheeks angrily and continued, **"Or hear their awesome music!"** She sighed in disappointment.

Atlas thought she knew the cause of the girl's problem and thought, _'The Spell...'_

**"Strange..."** Henry said, scratching his head. He turned to the magi dragoness and asked, "Hey Atlas, do you know why there was a sudden blackout?"

The magi shook her head and lied, **"That's a good question. I don't know what happened."** With the humans having taken up new measures to get around the Spell, Atlas figured that the cause of the blackout should remain a secret, no matter what. Even if Henry was a friendly human, there was no guarantee that he might leak out this information to the other humans, who would try to create their own magic spell to remove the Spell, so that they can go back to using technological weapons to oppressing dragons once more.

Danielle, on the other hand, was willing to answer the question without knowing what her consequences might be. **"I know wat it was. It was da Spell,"** she answered.

Atlas whipped her head around to her brown niece and scolded, **"Danielle!"** Great, now there was probably going to be a chance that their shortly-lived freedom would go back to the age of darkness.

**"Wat? Wat did I say?" **the whiptail answered, confused.

**"The... Spell...? What do you know about the Spell?"** Henry asked Danielle out of curiosity. His sister also stared at the whiptail and wanted to know about this Spell.

**"Who casted the spell?"** the girl asked, her tone suddenly sounded friendly and curious. Her brother looked at Atlas for a moment before focusing back on the hatchling.

Before her niece could say something, Atlas formed a telepathic bond with the whiptail and told her, _'Don't say anything.'_

Danielle looked back at her aunt and replied, _'Why not, Aunt Atlas?'_

_'Because they might accidentally tell this to bad humans, who would then destroy the Spell and make us slaves again,'_ the magi answered.

_'Eek! I dun want to be a slave!'_ said the young whiptail, who was afraid of the idea.

_'Then don't tell any human about the spell, got it?'_ Atlas told her.

_'Okay, Aunt Atlas,'_ Danielle promised. Then the hatchling looked back at Henry and his sister and answered, **"Sowwy, I can't tell yew. Aunt Atlas says that it's a secwet."**

At this point, the magi facepalmed at the stupidity before reminding herself, _'Don't be mad, Atlas. She's just a kid who doesn't know any better.'_ Then she looked at the human siblings and decided to come clear. She said, **"Alright, it looks like the cat is out of the bag. But before I tell you what the spell is, can you promise to keep this a secret from anybody, no matter what?"**

Henry made a peace sign and said, **"Okay."**

His sister just nodded understandingly and asked, **"So what's the secret you've been hiding?"**

Although they may have promised, Atlas felt the need to twist the truth a bit just for safety precaution and answered, **"The Spell was cast by one powerful dragon; who was a magi and the strongest in the world. He had just invented the Spell last night and used it to free his kind from slavery around the world by permanently disabling human technology. It was suppose to only work on those used to keep dragons down, but it looks like the Spell had done its job too well and went for the harmless tech as well. And that's why your home appliances aren't working anymore."** Now that she thought about it, she wondered how and why that happened.

**"T-that means..."** The girl sat in a corner with her frying pan. **"N-no TV... no computers..."** she muttered in quiet sadness.

Knowing how the girl felt, the magi said with sympathy, **"It's going to be tough living without the things you'll miss, kid. I know I've been through that a lot."** Along with Flarina and some others she lost in her life, the magi had her parents killed by hunters when she was a hatchling and then sold into slavery, losing her freedom and her childhood in the process.

Then the girl looked as if she had forgotten something and rushed back into the house. She stayed in there a little while until she returned with two things; a big container of ice cream and a box of popsicles. She dumped the container with ice cream onto Henry's lap and opened the box to receive a popsicle. **"Can you eat the container of ice cream? The fridge isn't working anymore. We need to finish this quick,"** she asked her brother as she took off the wrapper and bit into it.

Henry went inside to grab a plastic spoon to scoop up a piece for him to eat. After he returned, he took a spoonful and tasted it. **"It's strawberry-flavored,"** he said.

The sisters looked at the strange foods the siblings were eating and Kylie asked, **"What are dose? Are dey meat or fwuit?"**

The boy looked at the hatchlings and answered, **"It's called ice cream. It's very sweet like fruit, so yes."** Henry used the back end of the spoon to scoop up a piece of strawberry flavored and gave Kylie a sample. **"Wanna try? It's pretty tasty, if ya ask me,"** he asked.

**"Sure, Henwy! I wan some,"** said the balloon. She opened her mouth and ate the strawberry ice cream on the spoon. As expected, the ice cream was pretty delicious. **"Mmm! Yummy! I wan some more,"** she said hungrily.

Danielle declined to have some of that treat as she said why, **"I can't eat ice cweam, cause I'm a whiptail and I onwy eat meat."**

The boy looked at his sister for a moment, who was biting and chewing the popsicle. **"Yukki... Won't you get brain freeze since you're literally chewing on them?"** he asked, voicing his concern.

The girl responded, **"I do this all the time. Mom was able to bite into a popsicle and chew on them and she never got brain freeze."** Atlas felt a painful sting on her body and went to licked her wounds to keep them disinfected.

Henry looked at the magi and asked, **"Have you ever tasted ice cream before?"**

Atlas stopped licking and replied, **"No, but I can't eat it either, because just like Danielle, I'm a carnivore."**

**"I'm sorry to hear that, Atlas,"** the boy said as he ate some more strawberry flavored ice cream. Henry was eating it it quicker now, as the ice cream had started to melt.

Danielle looked to what Yukki was eating and asked, **"And what about what she's having? Are they meat or fruit?"**

Henry gave Kylie another scoop using the back end. **"It's too bad that ice cream probably won't even exist anymore now that all the electrical appliances are gone,"** he sighed.

**"Aww, dat stinks,"** said the balloon, disappointed that she was never going to eat another of that cold creamy dessert again in her life time.

**"I guess I'll go and buy some groceries then,"** Henry said.

Yukki stared at her brother, confused. **"Dude, how are they going to accept money in this situation? It's probably going to be completely empty and-oh..."** She quickly figured out what he was up to. **"You're not actually going to buy food, are you?"** she questioned him.

Henry whistled a bit. **"Maybe,"** he said, sounding clever.

Atlas offered to help out the boy, **"Well if you're going to go into the city for food, I can give you a ride there for faster traveling. But first I need my wounds treated."** Because if she flew now, it would be rough having to feel the pain of her injuries during her trip to and back. **"Someone wrap some bandages around my wings and chest,"** she said.

Fed up with waiting for an answer, Danielle went to one of the popsicles and tried to eat through the wrapper. But it felt tasteless, tough, and a bit slippery. **"How do you get dis food out?"** she asked.

**"We use hands,"** Henry said, showing his hands. **"You can easily open the wrapper using paws,"** he said and grabbed a popsicle.

Danielle watched the boy unwrap the popsicle and thought, _'Oh, so that's how you get the stick food.'_

Henry reached out the purple popsicle to the whiptail and asked, **"I know you're not exactly a herbivore, but do ya wanna try eating this?"** He used his other hand to eat some ice cream.

She looked at snack for a bit and replied, **"Hmm... okay."** Then she gave the popsicle a lick and felt a bad taste in her mouth. She spat on the ground and said, **"Yuck!"**

**"Does it taste that bad?"** the boy asked curiously. He took the popsicle an licked it, despite it already licked by the hatchling.**"It's Vanilla flavored..."** he said as he licked the sweet, savoring popsicle.

**"Va... nilla?"** asked Danielle trying to repeat the word. She was clueless about to what kind of fruit a vanilla is.

Henry looked at Atlas and said, **"My hands aren't available right now."**

**"I guess I'll do it then,"** volunteered Yukki, who shrugged and snatched the medical kit. She hurried over to the dragoness and took out a bandage. **"Okay, where should I wrap first?"** she asked.

The magi replied, **"Start with the chest first, because that wound is next to my heart."** Because of that fact, it was the most worrying of the three wounds.

The girl looked at Atlas's wounds. **"Ummm... Do you want me to try and disinfect it or...?"** she asked, sounding unsure at the end.

The dragoness declined, **"Nah, I already licked my wounds clean. All the germs should die by now. Just go ahead and wrap them already."** Saliva was a dragon's natural medicine to cleaning out germs in wounds as there was lysozymes to aid against infection. Although it wasn't the most effective disinfectant compared to a healer dragon's magic, dragons did this in case there wasn't one around.

**"O-okay!"** Yukki said and started to unwrap some of the bandages. **"Uhhh..."** she looked at how Atlas was standing.

_'Hm?'_ the magi thought, thinking that the girl needed something.

**"C-can you like, lower down a bit so I can wrap this bandage around you...?"** she asked. She couldn't exactly reach over to wrap the wounds in bandages.

**"Sure thing,"** Atlas replied and she pressed herself down to the ground without touching the dirt, so that the bandages can be wrapped around without the earthly floor getting in the way.

Yukki went to wrap the bandages all over the dragoness's body. After she was done, the girl scrutinized at her medical kit.**"Looks like we're almost out of medical supplies..."** she said before glaring daggers at her brother, who started to shiver a bit.

**"Now now sis, no need to leak out black aura..."** Henry said, trying to calm down his sister a bit.

Yukki stopped glaring for a moment. **"Hmph, fine. But if I catch ya being stupid..."** She picked up her frying pan. **"Yoouuu should knoowww..."** she said before rushing off into her house.

Henry looked on in silence before saying fearfully, **"I'm screwed."** Then he finished the last of his ice cream.

Atlas snorted quietly at disgust for Yukki's abusive threat. Then she thought to the family's supplies. _'Looks like we have something else to look for besides ice cream,'_ she thought. The dragoness looked at the boy and said, **"Alright Henry, hop aboard. We'll go see if the same place we're going has those medical supplies your sister says that she's running out of."** She figured that time away from home would keep the poor boy out of his sister's fury and give him a moment's peace. The dragoness sat on the ground and waited for Henry to climb aboard her back. Then she looked at her nieces, **"And you two stay in the house until I get back, alright?"**

**"Okay, Aunt Atwas,"** said the sisters at the same time before they walked inside the house.

Henry quickly rushed over to the magi and quickly climbed on her back. **"Haha! My sister is going to kill me, but I'll deal with the pain somehow!"** he said in an almost sing-song tone.

The dragoness looked in concern and asked, **"Are you sure?"**

**"Maybe I should 'buy' some frying pans..."** the boy said out loud.

Atlas didn't like the idea of giving the sister more weapons to use and suggested, **"Yeah uh... Let's forget about the frying pans if you don't like getting hurt."**

**"Or maybe I could buy a dress, or some makeup..."** Henry muttered. **"Anyways, onwards to adventure time!"** he yelled out before snickering. Then Atlas stretched her wings and took off into the air. Looking down, the boy noticed his sister through the window glaring at him. **"Orrrr, maybe I could pay the store somehow I guess... heh heh..."** he laughed nervously. The dragoness used her wind magic to push the winds against her wings to boast her speed to make getting into the city quicker. It was going to take a while to get there since she was like 5 miles from the nearest city.

* * *

The sisters looks looked at all the furniture and stuff that was inside the house. **"Wow, what a bunch of stwange things you have,"** said Kylie.

Danielle looked at some portraits hanging on the wall, some of them looked like Henry and his sister. Thinking they were alive, Danielle asked, **"Hi, are yew nice humans, too?"** When the portraits didn't respond, the whiptail asked again, **"Hello, say something? Awe yew nice humans or not? And why are yew staying still wike dat?"**

Henry's sister came over and asked, **"Uhhh, girls, why are you talking to a portrait of my mom?"**

The whiptail turned around to see the girl. **"A portwait? Wat's dat? And dat lady is yew mom? She wooks pwetty!"** she asked and complimented.

**"A portrait is something to... um... well..."** The girl paused for a bit. **"A picture of yourself in a frame, I guess?"** she said uneasily.

Danielle asked, **"Ooh, is it like how yew imagine someone like in telepafy and put them on the fwame?"** She guessed that was why the humans in the portraits weren't talking.

**"Uhh... Sure..."** the girl replied.

The hatchling became enthusiastic and asked, **"Wow! I'd like to make a portwait of Aunt Atlas someday. How do yew do that?"**

**"The picture?"** Henry's sister snickered a bit. **"Haha... Me no have no clue,"** she said in a random accent. Danielle was humored as she made a smile. **"Maybe you should ask Henry. He should know more things about the world than me... I hope,"** she said to her.

**"I hope Henry didn't refill half of the food supplies candy..."** she muttered. The girl clutched onto her frying pan with a grim face. It was almost as if a black aura was leaking out of her.

Kylie noticed the girl looking upset and asked, **"What's wong? Are yew mad?"** She hoped the human wasn't mad at her sister and would hit her with the frying pan like she did with her brother.

Th girl glared at the balloon hatchling, causing her to flinch. **"I'm FINE! I'm really, really great,"** she tried to say in a sweet tone. **"AND I'll feel even better when I'll crush his neck!"** she shouted, which made the sisters feel uncomfortable. **"Or something like that,"** Henry's sister said as she quickly calmed down. She loosed the grip of her frying pan. **"Sorry, I just dislike my brother. Pay no attention to it,"** she sighed.

**"Okay, but why dun yew like yew bwother?"** asked Kylie.

**"Why?"** the girl replied. **"Because he is stupid and irresponsible, and almost never seems to take things seriously,"** she said with a huff.

**"Oh..."** the balloon responded.

**"I guess my brother does care for me thought..."** she muttered. **"I'll be nicer to him, if you want. But only because you said you wanted to. That is, if you do. Not like I'm actually doing it for his sake..."** She turned away a bit to take in a deep breath.

**"Okay, thanks... uh..."** the hatchling said before she couldn't find any name to call the girl, since none of the sisters learned of the human's name.

**"It's Yukkiona,"** she replied. **"Call me Yukki or Yukko for short,"** she added on before she went to sit on a couch nearby. **"Also... How long will this blackout last?"** she asked them. **"I have a feeling I'm going to use my frying pan more often around Henry,"** the girl muttered out loud.

Danielle replied, **"I dun know."**

**"Me neither. I'll go ask Aunt Atwas,"** said Kylie. Then she formed a telepathic bond with the dragoness. _'Aunt Atlas, how long will the blackout last?' _After getting an answer, she replied, _'Okay, Aunt Atlas.'_ The balloon said to Yukki, **"Aunt Atwas said dat a power pwant got destwoyed by dwagons."**

**"What?!"** Yukki shouted in shock. **"Well this is just great! It's going to be a while before I eat ice cream again,"** she whined.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I went and changed the number of miles the Firestars traveled, so that it's consistent with how far away they are from Windfall and the evening time. Also, this chapter was originally going to have some more scenes including where Atlas and Henry go to the city and encounter a vampire dragon horde inside a supermarket, but I decided to move them over to Chapter 9 as I felt that it would make this chapter too long.

Yukki (c) Jass


	10. Dangerous Errand

**Chapter 9: Dangerous Errand**

After some time later, the two made it to the ruined city and went to search for the grocery store. Since the electric lights were no longer working, Atlas had use her fire aura to give light to her sight in the dark evening. Henry took surprise to see himself covered in flames and cried out in panic, **"Oh my gosh, I'm on fire!"** He tried to beat down the fires with his hands.

Atlas felt what her friend was doing and told him, **"Relax, this is my fire aura. It doesn't hurt anyone I cast it on."**

**"It doesn't?"** asked the confused boy, who had calmed down now. **"Well I guess that explains why I'm not burning at all,"** he said before putting a hand on his back and laughing embarrassed.

**"Glad you figured that out. Besides, it'll help us stay clear of danger,"** the dragoness said. During her flight, Atlas saw that there were dragons who decided to make their homes in the buildings as prize of their vengeance against the humans. Because most dragons around the world hated humans, she had to be careful not to run into any of them, or else they would think that Henry has made her his slave and try to kill him. Soon, Atlas heard her niece's question and replied,_'Like I said, the Spell is supposed to be permanent. That means all the human tech, if the Spell really did get the harmless ones too, will never work again.' _She came across a destroyed power plant that had been burned to the ground. _'Huh, I guess that's why Henry's household stuff aren't working anymore,'_ she thought, now knowing it wasn't the Spell that was behind their misfortune. She told Kylie about the power plant before telepathic communication was over.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the boy asking, **"Hey Atlas, have ya ever noticed how the city looks like its been in a war zone? What do you think happened here?"**

The magi asked, **"Huh? You don't know?"**

**"Nope,"** Henry answered. **"Yukki and I had been watching anime all night long yesterday. We didn't get to watch news or anything."**

**"Oh..."** Atlas replied. **"Remember that Spell I told you about?"**

**"Yeah, why?"** asked the boy. The dragoness told him that every dragon around the world went on a rampage to attack their oppressors to vent out all the anger and suffering they had went through under the hands of their masters. Henry was surprised and in awe as he said, **"Whoa! That kind of anger sounds much more dangerous than my sister's."**

The magi replied, **"Yep! That's what a lifetime of pain and frustration can make you do."**

Henry said, **"Guess I shouldn't get on a dragon's bad side, if I value my life."**

**"Or better yet, stay away from dragons in general,"** said Atlas. **"I and some others may trust you, but I know a lot of others who'll want to kill you just for being human."** She thought about such dragons of the latter such as Aeolus, who deemed all humans a threat to dragonkind, no matter if they were good or bad. After a while, Henry found the grocery store and told the dragoness to land in front of the building. She lowered herself to let the rider off as she told him, **"Alright Henry, we're here. Go get what you need and come back."**

The boy hopped off and asked her, **"Okay, but first could you unflame my body? What if the foods I touch burn?"**

**"Good point,"** Atlas said matter-of-factly, because she knew the fire aura would burn all those outside of its protection. She used her magic to dispel most of Henry's fire aura until only his head was blazing, so that he could see through the darkness inside the store.

The boy thanked her before he walked towards the supermarket, where he went inside through the now doorless entrance. Atlas could see the light of his head getting smaller and smaller through the window as he went down the aisle. She stared out into space as she let her mind wander on thoughts of what her new home would be like. Perhaps a cave on the ground, a new dragon village, or in the mountains. Then she noticed a flying dragoness in the sky, but didn't care to give her much attention for now as she moved her view down from the sky. Soon, she saw snow falling down and became curious. _'That's strange. The sky's clear and it's summer time, but yet it's snowing. What the hell is going on?'_Atlas quickly had an idea on what, or rather who, was behind this as she looked to the dragoness who was clouding up the sky and making it snow._'Oh, I guess that must be her work. Don't know why she's trying to make it snow here though,'_ the magi thought. The snow quickly blew hard and fast, causing the parking lot to get covered in its white cold blanket. Atlas had to intensify her fire aura to make the flames bigger and warm herself up against the increasingly cold atmosphere. Any snowflake that touched the fires or landed in the uncovered black asphalt that bordered the magi was instantly melted.

* * *

Henry drooled at the sweet things in the store. Marshmallows, chocolate, juice and all other kinds of sweet things that hadn't been touched during the attack were still in the store. **"It's like Heaven!"** he exclaimed. He snatched a bag of marshmallows and hugged it. **"You are very squishy, marshmallows,"** he said to it playfully. The boy filled the basket with sweet things, until he saw the frying pan. He stared blankly in silence as it reminded him so much of his sister, although it was mostly because he was hit with pots daily. He slowly took the frying pan and placed it in his basket before towing off to obtain other supplies. **"Now All I gotta do is buy some food where you can easily eat it and... oh, hey, is that instant noodles?"** Henry said and quickly rushed over to fill his basket with beef-flavored ramen, chicken-flavored, and shrimp ramen. Then he went over to the pharmacy aisle to take the bandages, medicine, and other useful stuff. With the basket being nearly food, all the boy had left to buy was the ice cream. But chances were that they had melted and probably spoiled over time.

He'd simply leave and make it easier on his time and energy, but what would Yukki say if she found out that the frozen desserts were still there. Letting out a sigh, Henry said, **"I guess I better go check."** He made his way over to the frozen desserts aisle and found no light shining in the freezers. Also, the teen felt no chilly atmosphere coming from the freezers. In an attempt to deny these observations that were telling him the bad news, the boy opened one of the glass doors and took out the one of the ice cream boxes. The package felt like it was at room temperature on his hands. Henry knew what disappointing thoughts he was thinking, but still fought to deny the truth. _'Come on, please don't be what I think you are,'_ he thought. He removed the lid and saw exactly what reality had been screaming to him; the melted pink liquid of what used to be strawberry ice cream. **"Oh..."** the boy moaned in disappointment. He thought the same fate might have happened to the other boxes of ice cream and the frozen snacks, but he didn't want to give up just yet. He took out every box, checked them, and threw them to the side if their contents liquefied. It went on until every box of ice cream, popsicles, sherbet, and Italian ice was out of the freezers. Tired and defeated, Henry slumped over and sighed, **"Aw man, my sis is going to kill me."**

**"Not if I kill you first,"** said a low-pitched demonic voice behind him.

The boy straightened up in a panicked surprise and turned around as he asked, **"Who said that?!"**

**"Me!"** said the black &amp; white vampire dragon in an echoing tone. His eyes were glowing eerily red, making the boy jump and yelp in fear. **"What are you doing here, human? You know this city's dangerous now that we've taken over your homes,"** he asked as he walked towards Henry, who was walking backwards scared.

**"I-I-I was just t-trying to get some ice cream for s-s-sister,"** Henry stuttered. **"Th-that's all."**

**"Ice cream?"** the vampire dragon asked before laughing at the boy's stupidity. **"You simple-minded fool! Don't know you know your city's in an eternal black-out? You think you'll find ice cream here?!"** he asked, stomping his foot as he thrust his head forward, making the human more scared than ever.

**"W-w-well I..."** Henry tried to come up a reason to explain himself without looking like a fool to the killer vampire. **"I was hoping the blackout wouldn't do anything to this part of town. I... So I thought the ice cream... would be okay."**

**"Well you thought wrong, human,"** the vampire said. **"There is no ice cream here. But if you're that desperate to find what you're looking for."** His month turned into an evil grin and said in a louder and startling volume, **"Then maybe you can find your precious ice cream inside me!"** The dragon lunged his open jaws at the teenager, who screamed and turned around to run away. The vampire pursued after his prey through the street of the refrigerated foods.

Henry made a turn into the canned food aisle and soon felt his feet step onto what felt like a flesh. He looked down and saw a dead ash gray hatchling below him; it's body looked like it had been weak and sickly at birth. The eerie sight sent chills up the boy's spine and made him shriek; he was now more determined to escape the supermarket right away. As he moved along, more dead hatchling bodies appeared, all in the same state and color as the first one. _'Oh cripes, this dragon's a heartless killer. If I don't get out of there, I'm going to end up looking like these baby dragons,'_ Henry thought, trying to avoid stepping on the bodies as best as he can. A few times he accidentally did so, nearly making him trip and slowing him down a bit for the vampire to get closer. At the end of the aisle, a pairs of tiny red glowing eyes appeared in front of him, from the sides, and on the shelves behind him. They belonged to the vampire dragonets who were leering at his hungrily and smilingly open-mouthed to show off their pointy teeth. **"Y-yikes!"** Henry cried.

The adult dragon finally caught up to him and let out a triumphant laugh as he said, **"Ha ha ha, you thought escape would be so easy, did you?"** The boy hesitated to turn his head around to look at him and speak. **"It's a good thing I had stolen some eggs to make minions from. They help trap our prey easily."**

**"Heh... I can see why,"** the human replied, distressed that he couldn't find a way around them.

**"But anyway, enough talk. I think it's time my children claim their reward for a job well done. Everybody feast!"** the vampire said. The dragonets were all too eager to drink the boy's blood, so they immediately leapt and flew at him.

Henry used his arms to shield himself and knocked back the first two, a black male and a white female. The boy let out a desperate shout, **"Atlas, help!"**

* * *

It had been a short while since Henry left to to do his search in the supermarket and Atlas was still waiting for him to return. By now, the snow dragoness had flown off away out of sight over the building. The magi was still clueless about the snow being dumped at the parking lot, but she brushed that aside and focused her attention at the doors and windows of the store. Her patience was finally rewarded with the sight of Henry's flaming head shown in the darkness, but he was accompanied by many pairs of red eyes. Atlas became alert and worried for what hostility the dragons would have against the boy. After she moved in to get a closer look at the scene, she lowered her head to the window's level and saw through it to see the dragonets swarming and attacking the human. **"No!"** the dragoness cried desperately. She had to save him fast before he would get eaten. Using her magic energy, she powered up her body to be strong enough to break through against the hard shell of the supermarket. After she was fully charged, the magi rammed into the building and broke through, destroying the entrance and leaving a big hole there. The vampires stopped their assault to look at the furious flaming beast in surprise. **"Let him go, you bloodsucking bastards!"** Atlas yelled.

Henry lifted his upper torso off the floor, but not standing up. He looked at her with a bit of relief on his scratched face and said, **"Atlas, you came."**

**"What's this? A dragoness who allied herself with a human?"** asked the vampire. He let out a short laugh in amusement and said, **"Well what a surprise! I guess you must not care so much about our suffering caused by these humans."**

Atlas growled, **"You leave him out of this, scumbag! I bet you he didn't do anything to us dragons."**

**"'Bet', you say?"** the vampire asked. He grinned at her naivety and continued, **"That sounds like an assumption. I can't believe you'd risk your life for a someone you barely know, especially a human. You might either be noble or a half-witted fool without a brain cell."** Some of the dragonets snickered while covering their smiles with their paws.

The magi growled, taking offense from the vampires' ridicule and laughter. **"Don't insult my intelligence, you long-fanged freaks!"** she snarled. **"I'll have you know that I was a champion in the dragon fighting tournament for nearly a century in a row and not once have I ever lost a battle!"** she yelled to warn them of her ferocious might. She was going to use it if those vampires don't let go of Henry or keep infuriating her further. **"So if you know what's good for you, you better scram before I go ape-shit on you!"**

**"Making threats are we?"** the dragon said, completely unfazed. **"Well you should know that being a long-time champion doesn't mean that you're invincible. Let me be the one to remind you that magi dragons such as yourself have an aversion to darkness much like humans have to lead."** The vampires walked towards Atlas like a pack of wolves getting ready to attack. The magi stood her ground as fearlessly as she can be. These vampires were not going intimidate her no matter what their element may be. Plus all of them were smaller than her, so she had the advantage in being physically stronger. The head vampire made a ghastly smile and said, **"So tell me, have you ever survived this?"** All at once, the vampires blew out their black flames at the dragoness. These flames became mixed with her flame aura that it started burn the user it had once protected. Atlas roared out from the excruciating pain.

Henry had gotten scared by how his friend was getting hurt. With his arm stretched out as if he was trying to reach her, he shouted worriedly, **"Atlas!"**

The magi turned and retreated out of the building to avoid any further damages. **"Mwuahahaha!"** the head vampire laughed.**"What's the matter? I thought you were a champion? Can't handle the heat? Well stay out of my lair!"** he mocked her.

Atlas dispelled her aura so to prevent anymore harm before she glared at the vampires and growled, **"You bastards..."** Within the next second, she cast a more protective cover in the form of a light aura. The horde all screeched and snarled from the blinding light hurting their eyes as they turned their heads away. Vampire dragons had a natural negative phototaxis to light, because light magic was one of the breed's weaknesses alongside garlic. **"You're going to pay for this!"** the dragoness yelled. Then she cast a barrage of light lasers at the horde. The spells burned off the the dragonets' flesh and filled the air with screams so loud that Henry had to cover his ears to keep himself from becoming deaf.

The vampire leader squeezed his eyes tight and roared, **"Aaah, it burns! It burns!"** No one could not handle the intense pain from the lasers. The head vampire had to save his horde quickly, so he issued the order, **"Enough! Everyone, retreat."** The vampires turned tail and ran off into the darkness to avoid any more of the barrage. Now it was only Henry left alone in the light and safe from his would-be predators. The dragon's voice boomed from the shadows, **"You win this time, magi. But next we see your human, he will become our lunch and we'll make sure you don't ever stop us. Go human, go back to your dragon."**

The boy picked himself up off the floor and walked over to Atlas. He shielded his eyes with his hand to block out the light aura's harsh glare. After he was outside, the light aura dimmed itself and disappeared. Henry dropped his hand down as he said,**"Thanks Atlas. If it wasn't for ya, I'd-"** He stopped talking when he saw a sight he thought was gruesome. His eyes went wide and his mouth dropped agape. **"Atlas, you look awful. Is that what the dark element does to ya?"**

The magi's body had been covered in severe 3rd degree burns that exposed the pink of her flesh and destroyed her eyelids. There were some dark burnt spots on her body and a few bones of her wings were seen amongst its flesh. The dragoness answered, **"Yes, Henry. That's what it does to me. The fire just added more fuel to it."** She winced when she felt her burns sting. **"I've suffered attacks like that many times in the tournaments. So that's nothing,"** she continued.

**"Yeah, but how do ya get healed afterwards?"** Henry asked. **"I don't think even my pot sister can treat all those burns."**

Atlas explained, **"My slave masters used a white dragon to heal all those wounds. That's why I always look unscarred after a battle."**

**"Well that's cool,"** said the boy. **"But where can we find a white dragon? We hardly get much dragons around these woods."**

The magi recalled the dragonet from this morning and thought about asking her help. She could ask her for her location and teleport to there in a jiffy. Before Atlas could ever think to do that, a male dragon voice sounded from somewhere asking, **"What happened here?"** The dragoness and human looked to see some dragons approaching them. Three of them were using the held flames in their mouths as torches to light the way.

They stopped 15 feet away and stared at Atlas's hideousness. **"Oh my goodness! What happened to her?"** asked a shocked aqua-colored dragoness.

**"Look at those burns!"** a brown dragon said. More dragons joined in and babbled about the magi's burns.

This started to get on Atlas's nerves. She scowled at them, but no eyelids to show her emotion, her mask looked less angry than she was trying to be. Then she roared over them, **"Shut up!"** The ramblings immediately turned into silence. **"What are you all here for anyway? To gaze at me like I'm some freak show exhibit?! Well this show's over! You all better run on home before I tear your asses up,"** she yelled.

The dragons were taken aback by the magi's rage; they hadn't mean to offend her at all. The leader of the group apologized,**"We're sorry, ma'am. We didn't mean to hurt your feelings. We only came because Frostfire saw a human riding and thought that you might have been his slave. So she cast some snow here for us to landmark where you were."**

The magi thought back to the snow dragoness from earlier and thought, _'So that's why she snowed on me.'_

The leader continued, **"We were only going to free you from him. I mean look at what he put you through."**

Henry took offense to being accused of abusing Atlas, while the magi growled at the dragons' ignorant assumption. The boy defended himself, **"I didn't do this to her! Those dragons inside did!"** He pointed to the grocery store, where the real culprits lived.

**"That's right!"** Atlas snarled. **"I risked myself to save him; not have him made out to be a criminal! And for your information, he's not a slaver, he's just a nice kid living alone out in the woods with his sister. I only took him to the grocery store to get what he needed!"**

**"Oh sorry, my bad,"** the leader said as the magi's anger made him feel bad about making a wrongful accusation against the boy. **"I didn't know he was innocent. It's just that most humans are bad."**

**"Yeah well, Henry's not a BAD human,"** the magi emphasized spitefully. **"Now if you'll excuse me, I got a white dragonet I need to see right now!"**

Before Atlas could use telepathy, a voice shouted from the crowd, **"Wait! I can help!"** The dragons moved aside to let the white dragon through to her. He guaranteed, **"I can heal all your burns and you will good as new."**

The magi's anger subsided and she felt glad that there was a healer among them. **"Well good, that makes things a lot easier," **she said, knowing how much time and energy he would save.

The white dragon nodded and said, **"It certainly does. Now still and let me work my magic on you."** Atlas stood and froze intently as she watched the white dragon use his healing magic on her, covering her in a light blue aura. The pain gradually subsided as burns disappeared and new flesh tissues and scales grew in place. Soon, the magi was back to her former self.

Atlas blinked her eyes to get the feel of her recovered lids. **"Ahh, now that feels much better,"** she said at the joy of feeling relieved.

Henry walked up to the white and showed his scratches and bites on his skin and torn patches of the cloth. **"****_'_****Scuse me sir, can you heal me too?"** he asked.

The white looked at the human's wounds and said, **"Sure."** He worked his magic on the boy as well until he was healed, save for the clothes as healing magic had no effect on inorganic things.

The boy smiled at the healer and said, **"Thanks!"**

**"You're welcome,"** the white replied and returned the smile.

Atlas looked to the boy and said, **"Well Henry, it looks like we're done here. Sorry you didn't get what you need. But you can always try again tomorrow morning, because that's when the vampires will sleep."** The vampire breed was known to sleep permanently during the day until dusk. Well "sleep" as in being frozen in their state of looking like they were dead. No sound, scent, or touch would ever wake them up.

Henry became disappointed and sighed, **"That's just great. What am I going to tell Yukki when I get back home empty-handed?"**

The magi knew that there was no doubt that the girl was going to abuse her brother for failing his errand. But she was not about to let her lay a hand or pot on him. She had an idea and assured him, **"Don't worry, Henry. I won't let her attack you again. We'll just explain what happened and tell her it was too dangerous to get them."**

The dragon leader overheard what they said and decided to be generous as he offered his help, **"Don't worry, I can go get your supplies if you want."** He told them why he was the perfect candidate to do it, **"I'm the chief on this side of this city, everyone should respect me. I doubt the dragons who attacked you will lay a tooth or claw on me."** It was reasonable, because any individual who attacked the dragon chief or king/queen would be committing treason against his/her horde. The chief looked at Henry and said, **"Now come with me, I'll escort you to whatever you need."**

The boy replied happily, **"Thanks, mister!"**

**"Why you're welcome, young one,"** the chief replied. He looked to the one of the firebreathers and told him, **"Flame, come with me. I'll need your light to help us."** The red dragon approached his leader and then the three went into the grocery store. Atlas and the dragons sat outside and waited for them to return with the groceries.

A few minutes passed by until the light of Flame's fire was seen coming out of the supermarket. Henry had returned and he was carrying the basket he had lost inside. **"Atlas, I'm back!"** he called.

**"Yeah, I can see that,"** the magi said. **"So how did it go? No trouble with the vampires, right?"** she asked.

**"Of course not,"** the chief said. **"I told them to let us through and they did just that,"** he spoke proud of how easy it was.**"Besides they looked too wounded to be do any fighting."**

Atlas cracked a cocky smile and boasted, **"Hah! That will teach those bloodsuckers for trying to mess with me and Henry."**

The chief agreed and said, **"I'm pretty sure they won't try to harm you again. Well just as long as you stay out of their lair, that is."**

Atlas looked down at the boy and asked, **"So Henry, are you ready to go?"**

**"Yes, I am,"** he said. Then he looked to the ground nervously and continued, **"But I'm worried that my sister will whack me for being late."**

**"Then I'll hit her back to see how she likes it,"** the magi said with her tail swishing to and fro as if she was itching to whip a certain abusive girl.

**"Yeah... uh... don't it, please,"** Henry said, disagreeing with her idea. **"I know she doesn't like me, but she's still my sister. And I would never want to see her hurt."  
**  
**"Alright fine, I won't do it," **sighed Atlas who stopped moving her tail. **"But still you don't need to take all that pain your sister gives you. You got to learn to stand up for yourself, otherwise she'll just keep giving you the frying pan," **she advised.

**"Well okay,"** the boy said.

**"Good, now let's get back to the house now,"** the magi said. She pictured Henry's house and yard in her mind before she cast her teleportation spell to warp herself and the boy to there.

* * *

Henry was surprised to see that Yukki didn't seem too taken aback by the news of the grocery store no longer being able to support frozen desserts. That was because the hatchlings had already told her. Yukki decided to make up for her displeasure by dragging her brother to her room and make him do something humiliating. The Firestar sisters pressed their ears closely to the white wooden door to hear what was going on inside. There were sounds of movement going back and forth, dropping soft things on the floor, and some shuffling that they couldn't make out exactly. They could hear the boy whining, **"Come on, sis, I don't want to do this again!"**

Yukki ignore her brother's protest and said, **"Shut up, baka! We just lost ice cream forever, so now I need something fun to do. And that's where you come in. So stay still an let me dress you up." **A zipping sound was heard.

Henry replied unhappily, **"Well dressing me up as a princess isn't exactly fun, you know."**

Danielle looked to her sister and asked, **"What's a pwincess?"**

Kylie shrugged, shook her head, and answered, **"I dun know."**

After a short few minutes, the hatchlings heard footsteps coming towards the door and then felt the door swinging away from them. They looked up to Yukki, who looked surprised to see them, **"Oh, I didn't know you guys were here,"** she said before smiling afterwards. **"Well doesn't matter, because I was going to let you see my brother in a dress."** She turned to the side and told, **"Oh Henriette, get over here!"**

The sisters glanced to each other confused as to who the new stranger in here was. **"Who's Henwiette?"** asked Danielle.

The Henriette person, who was Henry's feminine alter ego, did what his sister commanded of him and showed his glamorous new self to the hatchlings. His blonde hair looked like it had grown really fast to the point where it reached his chest. On the top of his head was a silver tiara adorned with a few rubies. He wore long white silky gloves and a glittering pink dress with magenta ribbons. His pink lips were now a crimson red color. Henry sighed and put a hand to his face. He said to himself, **"This is so embarrassing."**

The hatchling didn't seem to think so and were instead, fascinated by his appearance. Danielle commented, **"Henwy, you wook pwetty!"**

The girl nodded and said, **"I know, doesn't he?"** She grinned and snickered at her brother. **"I could dress him up in another cute outfit if you want."**

Henry shook his head hard at the sisters, gesturing them not to make this dress-up game go any further. But they ignored his plea as Kylie replied enthusiasm for another beautiful display, **"Yay, I wan ta see him in another dwess!"**

**"Me too!"** the whiptail said.

**"Okay then,"** Yukki said as her brother dropped his mouth open in displeasure and betrayal. She grabbed him by the back of the dress and said, **"Come on, Henriette. Let's put you in a maid outfit this time."** She dragged him into her room as the boy cried a long "no". Then the door was closed and the outfit change took place. Pretty soon, Yukki brought the boy out in new apparels consisting of a black dress, white stockings, black dress shoes, white gloves, a white Victorian maid hat, and a white apron. His hair seemed to have gotten short again for some reason. **"So what do you think?"** the girl asked.

The sisters squealed and Danielle answered, **"He's cute!" **The balloon hatchling agreed.

The girl said, **"I know, right? He looks so kawaii in these outfits!"**

Henry, not amused, dully murmured, **"Yeah kawaii, sure."**

Yukki took her brother back into the room and said, **"Alright Henriette, let's dress you some more."** So Henry was dressed up in a bikini, a geisha girl outfit, a fairy costume, a catgirl costume, a foxgirl costume, and other effeminate clothes. Each time he was earned praising comments from the sisters.

Atlas, who had stayed outside to sleep for the night, could hear her nieces's joyful cheers. _'Sounds like they're having a good time. It's nice that they have friends to hang out with, if only temporary,'_ she thought. The Firestars would live with them, but Atlas knew that they couldn't stay here in the Northeast region. Safety for the nieces came first before friends. Tomorrow morning, they would have to leave to travel again after breakfast.

By the end of the day, the dragon village was finished being built and all the traps were set. Aeolus, the one who took part in the Spell's invention, was offered the second best cave in the village, since the leader already took the best one. The disaster dragon gladly took the cave and went to sleep in it tonight.

When the people went back to the city, Kathia was moved into a hospital for better recovery. She laid on the bed with an IV attached to her bloodstream for support. All day, she had thought about how her battle would have been much easier and that she wouldn't be in this mess if she had magic powers like those mages. _'I have got to find a way to learn magic. Maybe there's a school for that somewhere,'_ she thought. Tomorrow, she was going to start learning before she would ever hunt again.

* * *

**Author's Note:** In the RP, the grocery store was in Windfall and didn't have a fight against a vampire dragon. But since that wouldn't make sense with how far Atlas traveled, I changed it to be in another city that got destroyed. Also in the RP, Frostfire was only flying over Windfall and leaving a mark of snow there for some unknown reason (she only had a brief appearance with only two posts).

Frostfire (c) AuraX13


	11. To Exterminate the Threat

**Chapter 10: To Exterminate the Threat**

The next morning, Atlas had went out to get some breakfast for herself, her nieces, and the human siblings. She returned to Henry's residence with the apples and killed animals to make up for the frozen foods and overnight-spoiled milk that the siblings were unable to turn into breakfast. The magi gave the apples to Kylie, who ate them and was kind enough to share some with the teens. Atlas had to tear the fur off the animals and cook them with fire magic after Yukki told her that they couldn't eat the meat like this. After everyone had eaten their breakfast, the Firestars shared their farewells with the siblings. **"Good bye, Henry. Good bye, Yukki. You all take care now, alright?"** Atlas said to them.

Yukki replied cheerfully, **"We will! Good luck on your journey; we hope you all get there!"**

**"That we will,"** the dragoness promised them. She took off into the air and flew away.

After the family disappeared into the distance, Yukki turned to her brother and said with a sly smile, **"You know, now that they're no longer here, I can get to do whatever I want."**

Henry got curious and asked, **"And what would that be?"**

**"THIS!" **the sister yelled as she whipped out her frying pan and pounded her brother on the head.

A bump formed on top of the boy's skull and his head felt dizzy with pain. **"Owww, what what that for?"** he asked.

The girl scolded, **"That was for being late with the errands last night. Do you know how worried I was? Well do you, baka?!"**

**"Uh... really worried?"** Henry guessed nervously.

**"Exactly!"** Yukki yelled before she whacked him again.

* * *

Aeolus and the other village dragons woke up and went on with their business. The disaster dragon left the village to go hunting for some breakfast. He trekked through the woods, looking out for scents of live prey that he may find. He encountered some brown brocket deer eating some leaves off the shrubs. The dragon stood still as he opened his mouth to charge up lightning into his breath. The animals sensed his presence at the last second and tried to turn away for a quick get away, but the disaster dragon blew out his breath and zapped three of the deers. The creatures' hearts stopped and they dropped dead onto the ground. Aeolus went over to his prey and ate them. Aeolus finished eating his deer when an arrow flew by and missed his head by an inch. The disaster dragon lifted his head up and turned his head around to the arrow stuck on the tree. The next arrow came and struck him on the side of the neck, but fortunately, not too deep to touch his wind pipe. Aeolus let out a snarl and blew lightning at the direction of where the arrows came from. The trees were set on fire and chipped when struck by the bolts. The man behind the attack was shocked and he let out a painful scream before dropping on the ground. Aeolus looked at the man and noticed his weapons; a bow and a sword. _'So it is true; the humans have resorted to non-mechanical weapons. That means...'_ he thought.

Then more arrows shot out and struck the dragon on the side. Aeolus growled and bared his teeth before deciding to kill the hidden hunters. He slammed his foot on the ground and shook the earth with his earthquake magic. The humans lost their balance and the trees fell on top of them, crushing their bodies and bones.

The disaster dragon looked down at the dead hunters and thought, _'If the humans are getting other ways to persecute dragons. That means the threat isn't over.'_ There was no doubt in mind that the ever-so-clever and greedy humans would find new ways to hunt and recapture their slaves to make up for loss of their advanced technology. As long as the dragons' nemesis lived, no one would be safe. There was only one way to prevent the nightmares from ever happening again: annihilate the human race. To do just that, Aeolus would need to learn their ways and weaknesses fast, so that he and the other dragons can kill them first before anything happens to his race. The dragon went to back to his village to seek help for his reconnaissance mission.

Aeolus walked down through the tunnels to get to the cave where Doubloon the village chief lived. Other dragons saw the arrow wounds on him and one of them asked, **"What happened to you?"**

The disaster dragon replied in a gruff tone, **"Humans."** Aeolus paused for a short bit as the dragons went silent in shock and waited for what else their neighbor had to say. **"They came at me with arrows as soon as I was finished eating. It seems like after all that has happened last night; they won't let go of their greed for slaves and power,"** he continued.

A terrae dragon said broodily, **"Oh bummer, that means we still have to fight for our lives. Persistent little bastards."**

A scared pink dragoness said, **"What are we going to do? I don't want to be made a slave again. I've already suffered enough for a life time."**

**"We're going to stamp out every single scum who walks on two legs and wears clothes,"** Aeolus answered, telling everyone of his plan.

The dragons looked at him intently and a dark green-blue dragon asked, **"W-we are?"**

The terrae dragon asked, **"But how? They've went back to weapons and have started using magic again. How do we fight them after they keep beating us every single time?"**

Aeolus explained, **"We pull a blitzkrieg on the humans; we strike them hard and fast before they can fully master their new found skills. But to do it successfully without the casualties of being surprised, we must take the stealthiest dragons we have and use them to spy on the humans for any weaknesses we'll use against them. Now if you'll excuse me, I have the chief to go see so that I can discuss the plan and strategy."** He resumed his walk as the dragons let him through to the chieftain's cave.

The disaster dragon entered the chief's cave and told him about his encounter with the humans and say that this was a sign that they needed to take immediate action against them. **"I see, so a preemptive strike right now should to put an end to this threat if we want to live in peace for the rest of our lives,"** said Doubloon.

**"Well we could do that, but we might put ourselves at risk this way should the humans use surprising tactics that could catch us off guard. I propose send dragon with powers and skills in stealth to spy on the humans and learn everything they can, so that we can be better prepared for the assault,"** said Aeolus.

**"Very well then, I'll call all dragons to meeting cave so that we can round up our potential spies,"** said Doubloon, liking the idea. He telepathically called all the dragons to come into the largest cave for an assembly. The two waited for a few minutes while a healer dragon worked his magic on closing the disaster's wounds. Soon, everyone was here. The chief cleared his voice and announced, **"May I have your attention, everyone? Aeolus here has come across some humans who attacked him with their ancient weapons. We've all heard rumors yesterday that these fiends have quickly switched to non-mechanical weapons and magic to make up for what they've lost on the night of the Spell. Aeolus's wounds are proof that the rumors are the truth. So it has come to my attention that we as a species must exterminate the humans before they bring us back to the dark ages that we never wish to live again."** He paused for a second to catch his breath before he resumed speaking, **"Aeolus has come to me with a plan to do a reconnaissance first before we go out and demolish the two-legged monsters."** He looked to the green dragon and said, **"I'll let you do the honors of giving us your plan in detail, Aeolus."**

Aeolus bowed his head shortly and replied, **"Thanks, chieftain."** He took the leader's spot on the high rocky platform and said, **"Now for this reconnaissance mission to work, we need dragons who are really good at sneaking around, dragons who can camouflage, dragons who with invisibility spells, and dragons who can disguise themselves to be our spies. These spies will gather information on the humans such as what kind of weapons and magic they're using, the layout of their new home, and any weaknesses we can use against them. The spies will then send info to the chieftain, me, and other strategists to make plans for the assault that will wipe the humans off the face of Terra. Now anyone who wants to volunteer as a spy, please rise and stand over there."** He pointed to the empty space on the side of the platform. Ten dragons went onto the platform to volunteer themselves as spies.

Five more dragons offered themselves up to be spies. When no more dragons got onto the platform, Aeolus looked at the crowd and asked, **"Does anyone else want to help? Yes? No?"** No one responded nor went stood up to walk. Coming to a confirmation that they had all the spies needed, the disaster dragon said, **"So then, it looks like we have enough spies for this mission. These dragons will go outside and search for the humans' home. But for this mission to go well, they should keep to the ground at all times, unless they can somehow hide themselves in the air without their shadows showing on ground. Large dragons should stay outside the base and listen from a distance, while the small ones like this wasp pygmy we see here will infiltrate their nest to gather more information. That's all the details of my plan. Chief Doubloon, will you resume speaking?"**

The yellowish-brown dragon said, **"Aeolus has now given us the plan that will lead us to thwart the humans. I now commence the reconnaissance to start immediately. All spies, go out and search for the humans."** The spies walked out of the cave and made their way out of the village to the outdoors. **"Also, I'll ask all dragons to stay inside for now until we have destroyed the humans and their new home. This meeting is now over."** The crowd disperse and went back to their caves and business. Doubloon looked over at Aeolus and said, **"You know, we should share our ideas with the other dragons outside our village."**

**"That, I plan to do,"** said Aeolus. The two used their telepathy to share the strategy with the other dragons they knew and told them to pass the message on to their friends, family, and other villages/clans.

* * *

A while later, the spies spotted the human village in sight down the slope. **"There it is, boys. The hairless demons' nest and look, it's even smaller than their original habitat,"** said a dark brown dragon looking over at the camp.

The blue-striped black dragon giggled and said, **"Heh heh, this will be easy. We don't even need to spy. We should get all of us to go down and demolish the place."**

The dark brown dragon shot him a stern look and said, **"Hey remember what that Aeolus guy said, the humans might have devastating tricks up their sleeves. So follow the plan and learn everything about those two-legged rats."** Then he looked at the night magi and said, **"Eitri, use that magi of yours and make us all invisible."** Eitri cast his magic on all the dragons and made them invisible to all, except themselves. **"Alright, let's go."** The spies went up to the village and stayed at the edge, while the pygmies went inside for closer investigation.

The spies observed everything the humans did inside the village and searched each tent. They saw that the humans were building up walls made of trees they cut down to protect themselves against outside threats; it seems like they haven't covered the whole village yet. The wasp pygmy flew over to the training area where the men where learning how to use swords and bows. Thankfully, nobody seemed to be learning any magic spells. After having obtained all the info they got, the spies went back to their village to give their report.

* * *

Doubloon listened to everything the spies had seen and replied, **"I see. Very well then, you're dismissed."** The spies left the room to let the council discuss phase 2 of the plan. **"It sounds like we won't be breaking a sweat wiping out the humans. All we need for this assault is to have our super-powered dragons eliminate their warriors and the weaker dragons kill off the rest of them."**

Aeolus came up with an alternative plan, **"Or I could conjure a tornado and demolish the village. The other dragons will stay on the ground outside and pick off any survivors who come their way. Those in the air can blow their breaths and spells at the tornado to kill the humans faster."**

**"Hmm..." **The chief thought about the plan and said, **"Not a bad idea. Everyone, what do you think?"**

**"I guess that sounds good,"** said one dragon.

Another dragon spoke his reason, **"It would save us the trouble of going inside the village and getting ourselves hurt by these dragon slayers."** Everyone else agreed.

**"Very well then, we shall go with Aeolus's plan,"** said Doubloon. **"I will call the all available fighters for them to hear it out."** The council followed their chief to the meeting room. The light brown dragon spoke telepathically to all of his villagers,_'Everyone, we have come up with a strategy to exterminate the humans. All those who can and are willing to fight must meet us at the meeting cave to hear out our plan.'_

The council watched the many dragons enter the assembly cave, one by one, until there were no other volunteers for the mission. Doubloon explained the plan to them and finished off by saying, **"And that's how we will destroy them. As your leader, I will go with you all to carry out the assault as planned. Now do we have any questions before we go out?"** He waited for a minute to hear what one of the dragons have to say, but silence was all he got. **"Very well then; move out!" **The chief flew over the crowd and landed at the exit to take lead as they got up to leave the village.

The horde arrived at their destination and watched the human village from afar. The dragon soldiers spread out to surround the outskirts. After a while, Doubloon telepathically asked,_ 'Is everyone in position?'_

_'We're ready, chief,'_ the dragons replied.

_'Good!'_ the chief said and nodded. He looked to the disaster dragon next to him and said, **"Now, Aeolus!"** The disaster used his power to bring together high and low air pressures and summoned a tornado right at the heart of the camp. The humans looked up to the tornado that suddenly appeared in their camp and quickly began to panic as they tried to run away from the huge spiraling vortex. But the people were sucked up into the tornado, along with the tents, equipment, and other possessions torn from the ground. Couples, friends, cousins, parents &amp; children were all separated from one another; having no one to hold on to through this destruction. Screams filled the air before they were drowned out by being inside the loud roaring of the tornado. The few refugees that managed to make it far out of the campsite were then put to death by the fiery breaths, jaws, and magic spells of the dragons. Aeolus moved the tornado a little around, so that it could pick up the tents that it hasn't sucked yet.

When the whole of the village seemed to be destroyed, Doubloon issued the orders to his aerial attackers, _'Breathe out at the tornado now!'_ The dragons flew up into the sky and blew out their breathes of various elements at the tornado to burn, electrify, and obliterate the humans. The addition of the objects and appliances colliding with the humans did more damage to them. Eitri used his magic to combine his comrades' breaths with the tornado to create a fiery, electric tornado to exterminate every single living thing inside as well as destroying the objects with them.

After a while of assault, Aeolus dispelled the tornado and let all the bodies and objects hit the ground from a very high height; killing whoever was left of the refugees. Doubloon used his telepathy to speak to all dragons, _'Everyone, don't think that Aeolus's killing move is a guaranteed hit that all the humans are dead. I want each and every one of you to scout the village and make sure that all the humans who lived here are indeed dead. I don't want there to be a survivor, so that he or she can live to tell the other humans what happened, so that they can be more prepared to fight our kind off.'_ The dragon scouted the campsite and the outskirts around it to check the bodies and make sure they weren't breathing. When they made sure that every single human was dead, the horde went home to tell their village that the humans' refugee camp was destroyed.

* * *

After the horde returned home, the dragons who stayed behind, went up to the fighters and asked questions like "Did you kill all the humans?", "Did anybody get hurt?", and "How did it go?" The fighters answered with yes's, no's, and other responses to specific questions.

Doubloon raised his voice to talk over the crowd and spoke, **"Fellow dragons, the attack went well as planned and the humans' nest is no more! And the best part is, there were no casualties within the horde."** The dragons roared out cheers for the perfect success. The chief looked to the night magi next to him and said, **"Relay this message to the rest of village."** The night magi did and sent the same words via telepathy. **"Tonight we can all sleep well without any fear of being hunted."**

Aeolus felt pride that his plan had worked like a charm. He would be using this tactic again for each human community until there came a time when he would need better strategy. _'Today, the village; tomorrow, the world,'_ he thought as his red eyes glared with a desire for revenge.

Bam and a few of his friends found his cousin and he said, **"Look guys, there he is! Let's go hang out with him."** They came up beside the disaster dragon and the royal blue patted him on the back, earning him his cousin's attention. **"Wow Aeolus, you're a genius! How did you come up with a plan like that?"** he asked smiling with admiration.

A longhorn dragon on the other side asked, **"Yeah man. I bet you must have a big brain to make that kind of plan."**

Aeolus explained frankly, **"It took brains and critical thinking to come up with this plan. I had to make sure that every risk in the attack was reduced or removed as possible and come up with the smartest and efficient ways to kill the humans. Besides, the humans were still green in their new ways. They most likely never would have survived the attack. So you could say it was, what the humans call it, a piece of cake."**

The dragon celebrated the victory with the food and prey they caught from the forest and songs. It was the first party that Aeolus and Bam had enjoyed in a long time since the raid at the family reunion about five centuries ago.

* * *

A lone man who had witnessed the destruction of his refugee camp from afar the whole time after his hunt in the woods, shed some tears for the loss of his friends and family whom he would never see again, never talk to again, or even hug and kiss again. The man looked at the campsite one last time before he put down his binoculars and turned to leave. Everything he held dear was lost to him and all that was left was sorrow and despair. The man sat against the tree and cried to himself. After a little while, he got up and traveled through the forest to find another refugee camp, which he made it to after a few hours later. He told the people there about the fate of his camp and what the dragons did to destroy it. The people became alarmed as they built up walls of lumber to protect their home from wingless dragons and made more weapons to fend themselves from future attacks.

* * *

**Author's Note:** That last part was a bit depressing. I kind of feel sorry for the fellow. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to build up the storyline.

Eitri (c) me


	12. A Beginner's Guide to Magic and Archery

**Chapter 11: A Beginner's Guide to Magic and Archery**

Thanks to white dragon magic, Kathia was released from the hospital and was feeling better than yesterday. But she was not ready to go back to dragon-hunting yet, because she needed to a better weapon to combat the beasts more efficiently. That better weapon was magic. The redhead went outside to find dragons reshaping the city's former self into what looked like a medieval town. Tall buildings were taken down in size to look like typical-looking middle age shops. The only largest thing she could see this mockery of a city was big fat castle. Light poles reverted back into their retro appearances. Roads that were once wide with multiple lanes had now been reduced and narrowed down to two or three lanes; even the traffic lights were gone as well, so the cars had to be directed by the traffic guard. These two things together had slowed down the traffic. The pedestrians and dragons with their huge sizes trying to walk across, certainly did not help the situation.

Some of the humans didn't seem to mind the change, but Kathia took it personally as an insult. It felt like the dragons were mocking the human race and telling them that they should live back in the middle ages, now that they had no tech to control the dragons with. Not only that, if the dragons felt like rebuilding the city would make up for all the human lives lost, then they were dead wrong. Nothing they did would ever bring back her family. **"Grrr! Damn lizards! If I could fight, I would stab one of those beasts right now,"** she murmured to herself angrily. She walked off to go look for a mage who would teach her some magic. But after walking through two streets, the girl encountered a bookstore with a poster at the window advertising the recent release of the newest kind of books, spell books. Now having another and more convenient way to learn magic, she smiled and said to herself, **"You know what? I don't even need anyone's help. I can just get a tome and teach myself magic."** With that, she went into the bookstore and went to the section where the magic books were displayed. She took up the beginner's guide since she was pretty much inexperience at using magic herself. Then she went to the cashier and purchased the book. Now having a list of magical weapons to use against dragons, Kathia left the bookstore and went to go look for a place where she can begin practicing her spell. **"Now where would I want to go?"** she asked herself.

Suddenly, she was slammed into from behind by another person. The tome almost jumped off her arm, but the girl managed to keep a firm hold on her book. As she recovered from the painful surprise, that person yelled, **"Hey watch it!"**

The redhead turned around with an equally angry look on her face and yelled, **"Me?! Why don't YOU watch where you're going? You're the one who walked into me from behind. What are you, blind?"** No way was she at fault here because of this angry guy's action.

The girl's retort only served to piss the tall, muscular black man off more than he already was. **"No but you must be dumb to be just standing in the middle of the bloody street,"** he snapped again.

**"What?!"** Kathia screamed angrily at the insult.

Then another man came to her defense by telling the black guy, **"Hey guy the lady's right; you bumped into her. So let's all just-"**

**"Cram it this ain't your business,"** the man continued to lash out. But immediately, he began to calm down and his expression of anger changed to that of regret. He took a breath and made an apology, **"Sorry, I'm just frustrated."**

Kathia forgave the guy and made a guess on what was going through his mind. **"So you had a bad day, eh? I don't suppose you're just as mad as I am about these blasted dragons taking over our city,"** she said with a hand on her hip. It only made sense, because earlier, she had walked by a couple of people in the bookstore murmuring their distrust of the dragons remodeling their city after their rampage and killing people.

The man replied in a hushed one, **"Tch! Got that right. I don't like it. First they burn our homes to the ground and now we're supposed to trust them? They're just trying to do to us what we did to them. Everyone's just too blind to see it."**

Kathia nodded in agreement about the seemingly ignorance of the human citizens. She was about to say "Yeah, if you ask me, we should all grab whatever weapon we have and chase them out of our city. They don't deserve to live alongside us after what they did!" But before any one of those words would come out, the man heaved a disappointed sigh and asked, **"Look sorry bout just now but do you know where I can find a place that sells whetstones and fetching?"**

The girl answered, **"I don't know; beats me. It seems like the whole city's been rearranged since the reconstruction. The familiar places I go to don't seem to be there anyone. They're probably somewhere else now."** Then she muttered her annoyance, **"Damn those dragons."** She spoke again in her normal volume, **"We can go look around for it, if you want."**

The man nodded at the offer. **"Sounds like a plan."**

Suddenly the sky grew dark with storm clouds hanging over Windfall and rain started to fall, wetting all the people outside who were unprepared for the abrupt weather change. **"Oh shoot!"** Kathia cried as she hastily held the spell book upside down and tightly to herself to avoid getting the pages soaked before she could read them. **"Come on, let's get inside!"** she said as she rushed back to the bookstore with the man following after her to take shelter inside. Her clothes, skin, and hair had been pelted with raindrops, which Kathia considered to be an annoyance as she didn't like being wet unless she was swimming or washing. She stayed inside the building and waited for the thunder storm to stop. Pretty soon, it stopped, but then it went back to drizzling and gradually increase to harder rain. The girl sighed and said, **"It looks like it's going to take a while before the rain stops."**

But in the meantime, this would give Kathia time to read her spell book. She left the man's side and stood by an empty aisle and opened her book to the first pages. She skipped the copyright section and started off with the introduction to magic. Concentration was the key to channeling magic energy and some spells required intense emotions to be stronger. Spells should also be practiced often for the user to remember the spells and master them. After reading the introductory, the book says for the reader to start off with the Dream Recall spell as it was one of the easiest to learn. This spell was a must as it will teach her about herself as well as lead the reader into a more advance spell like the Astral Projection spell later down the line. Kathia went to the next page to learn about the Dream Recall. To do this spell, she would have to cast it at night right before she goes to bed and falls asleep. That way she can remember her dreams a lot better than she did normally when she would forget and have no memory what she had last night.

Since this was a spell for nighttime, Kathia decided to save this spell for later and go on to the next spell in the beginner's section; the Familiar Spell. The Familiar Spell involved the spell-caster choosing a familiar person or animal and casting the spell to create a bond between the two. But in order for the spell to work, there had to be 2 requirements: 1) the wizard had to be acquainted with the target and 2) neither the wizard nor the target must hold any dislike for the other. That meant the spell couldn't be used on enemies. The familiar spell can be cast repeatedly to cement a stronger bond of friendship, but not romantic love; there were love spells for that. Kathia thought about testing out the familiar spell, but she had no idea where her friends and servants were or whether they were still alive or not. She could cast it on the black guy, but forming a bond with an unknown stranger might not be the best idea. Again, Kathia would have to skip this spell for the third one that's next in the book.

As she was deeply concentrated on the book, the man came up to her to see what she was reading. **"There wouldn't happen to be something in there for making homing arrows would there?"** he said teasing a little. **"Better yet, summoning fletching would be nice,"** he added with a chuckle.

The girl smiled in a way that almost made her look like she was giggling and said, **"Well I don't know. I haven't gotten this far ahead yet. I'm just new to this whole wizarding thing."** Then she thought, _'A homing arrows spell would be nice! Something like that would sure be vital to my hunts.'_

**"Just starting eh? Well Wizardry was never really my thing. I like to do things with my own two hands. When things aren't working out I find little works better than a good ol' cuff to the head,"** he said pursuing the joke a little farther seeing her smile. **"I've seen you flip through a couple pages now. You looking for something in particular?"** he asked walking over to Kathia and then leaning against the books shelf again once there.

Kathia laughed for a bit before answered, **"Yeah, I'm looking for spells that would help me kill those dragons. I like to learn them right away, but the book says that I have to start with beginner spells first so that my body can get used to the magic energy that's building up inside me. If I go with the big guns first, I'll just get a stroke."** And she couldn't have that happening to her before her life's goal of revenge against the entire species of dragons.

**"While I'm not one for magic I'd say do what the book says,"** the man stated idly as he plucked a straight branch from his quiver and began peeling the bark from it placing the peeled bark back into the quiver. **"Still..."** he added with a little more intent and notably quieter so that only Kathia could hear. **"If it's practice you need then I think I can help out. I could do with a little practice myself to be honest. And what better place than here in the city?"** he suggested pausing in his scraping and peeling to regard Kathia and read her reaction.

**"If that makes us better dragon hunters, then yeah,"** replied Kathia. Then she thought she might have made a mistake on the first assumption about the man being a dragon slayer himself. For all she knew, he might be just an animal hunter or a guy who just does archery as a hobby. **"That is... if you are one,"** she added. If they were going to practice magic, then they were going to need some sort of good place like a hideout or a wide open place in the city with little to no people. Magic, as shown by dragons, can be a dangerous weapon to use.

**"I am indeed, but it would be best if we talked somewhere else. Quite frankly I'm not inclined to risk eavesdroppers,"** he said keeping the hushed tone.

**"Right,"** Kathia agreed and spoke quietly. **"We don't know who's going to turn us in to those blasted monsters."**

The man then placed the shaft he had stripped back into the quiver. **"So..."** he said speaking clearly now. **"Lets get under way. We need to find you a place to practice magic where you won't hurt anyone by accident. We also need to find fletching and arrow heads for me so I can get back to hunting. Neither of those is going to happen if we're hiding out in this book store,"** he said with a smile on his face.

The girl replied, **"Right, let's get of here."** Then they walked to the glassy double doors and saw that the rain had stopped sooner than expected. The air smelled of moisture when they stepped outside to the stony streets.

As they walked, Kathia looked to the man and asked, **"So since we're going to be hanging out for a while. I want to know what's your name."**

The man answered with a smile, **"You can call me Jason. What about you? You mind telling me your name?"**

**"Kathia," **she answered.

**"Kathia," **Jason repeated the name.** "What a nice name for a pretty girl like you."**

The girl enjoyed the compliment and replied, **"Why thank you. I think it's a nice name, too."** The redhead kept her eyes out for any stores selling the items the archers needed for his hunts. She passed a barber shop, a women's salon, a bakery, a Domininan market, and a... Kathia's face contorted into a disapproving glare when she saw a spa for dragons. **"Hmph! As if I need the 'dragons are people' crap rubbed in my face,"** she said bitterly. Even Jason was upset about this as he huffed at the spa. To them it was practically devil worship. Well say goodbye to pelt farms that produced the best clothing, gear, and weapons; city developments made from dragon labor; and the tasty dragon meat and eggs. Thinking of food; Kathia had the idea to check the grocery stores later to see if the food made from dragons were still on sale. But for all she knew, the dragons might have banned them and threw them out away. Still, it wouldn't hurt to check later after practice and shopping. Soon, the duo came to a store selling fletching and arrows. **"Look Jason, there it is!"** she said.

**"Finally some good news,"** the man said, relieved to see a store selling the materials he needed. **"Come on,"** Jason said taking the lead and heading inside. Instead of looking around they made straight for the counter. **"I need two dozen arrowheads and enough fletching for two dozen arrows,"** he said to the shop owner. The clerk behind the counter nodded and went to get the man his order.

While Jason was getting the items he needed, the girl took a look around to see what the store had to offer. There were all kinds of equipment such as bows, knives, traps, fishing tools, game calls, hunting magazines, guns, and ammunition. The last two were useless as of now, but some of the other stuff may be of use to Kathia. There were the dragon call, dragon baits, protective helmet, and camo wear; tools which would be efficient for her hunts. She was quite thankful that the dragon officers haven't confiscated the stuff yet. If she had money on her, then she would be able to buy these items right now. But her parents' credit cards were at home and it was going to take quite a while walking from the store to there and back to here again.

Jason seemed to have noticed the stuff as well as he said, **"That camo looks handy."**

Kathia agreed and said, **"Yeah, I bet we could blend in and kill those lizards without them knowing."**

The clerk returned with the order he brought. **"Here ya go,"** he said.

Jason nodded and replied, **"Thanks."** The clerk cleared his throat and the hunter paid the man for the arrowheads and fletching, then dumped both into his quiver. He eyed the weapons on the wall and asked,** "How much for the guns and ammo?"**

The old man looked at the same objects and said, **"That lot? Heh, you can have em. Useless junk now anyways. I was just gonna chuck em but if you want them they're yours, take as much as ye like."**

The hunter smiled and said, **"Thanks. Kathia think you can grab a couple guns? I'll get the ammunition."** He made his way over to the ammo, and began collecting it up.

The girl complied, but with curiosity. **"Okay, but why do we need guns away? They can't shoot anymore,"** she asked. She went to the gun shelf and picked up two boxes with rifles in them.

Jason answered, **"We might be able to do something with the powder. We could probably sell the metal, too."**

**"Like what? What are we going to do with the gunpowder?"** asked Kathia.

The hunter said, **"We can use them to blow up stuff. You know? Ka-boom!"**

**"Oh, that's cool."** The girl had forgotten that fact about gunpowder. It was a good thing that the black man reminded her about that.

**"And we can even use it as medicine,"** said Jason, smiling.

The redhead found the suggestion very weird. Whenever she thought of gunpowder, she always imagined people using that stuff to fire and shoot. But gunpowder as a medicine? How was he going to pull that off? Raising her brow in confusion, she asked,**"Medicine?"**

The hunter nodded and replied, **"Yeah! It may sound funny to you; but trust me, it ain't just weapon to be used. The ancient Haniyese used that stuff to cure sores and ringworms. It even keeps away the damp and plague."**

The girl was surprised in a good way to hear all that. **"Wow, I never knew that. I'm impressed!"** she said as she grabbed the third box.

The two carried the stuff over to the counter, where Jason paid for them. The clerk gave him back his change and said,**"Thanks fer shopping, buddy! Hope I see ya again next time."**

As the duo carried the stuff and headed to the door, Jason looked back at the clerk and promised, **"You will, don't worry."**

Kathia looked back as well and said, **"And I will be there, too."** She intended to get the equipment she had her eyes on, the next time she returned. They went out the door and walked all the way to the parking lot. The place was smaller than it used to be with cars having completely filled up the spaces left and right, leaving those who wanted to stop and go shopping to look somewhere else for a parking space. The two went to a dark green minivan and Jason took out his car keys to push the bottom-most button on the little control. The trunk opened its lid up and the car's musty smell came out and touched the girl's nostrils. They put the guns and ammo into the wide empty space of the trunk and closed it back.

After that, they went on a search for the perfect place to use magic in the backlot. They saw an empty public basketball court and Jason pointed it to it. **"Hey, that looks like a good place. Want to go there?"** he asked.

**"Sure, why not?"** Kathia replied. They set foot into the place and Kathia opened up the tome to the page she was last at. She turned it over and discovered the calming aura spell. It was a spell that soothed the user's emotions to the point where they were relaxed and tranquil. The girl followed the instructions to this spell and let her mind tap into her inner magic energy. She felt nothing rising as there was a heavy blockage in the way of her channel. To remove it and gain the permanent ability to use magic, she had to remain in her magic trying state and chant, **"Unluk magisto!"** Just like a charm, the blockage was gone and Kathia now had access to her spells. She tried the calming aura spell again and channeled her magic energy to her mind, while trying to think relaxing thoughts. Gradually over a minute, she became serene as a swan.

Jason looked at her, trying hard to find something. **"Hey Kathia, is that spell of yours working or what? Because I can't see a thing happening," **he asked.

The girl explained to him, **"That's because this spell uses an invisible aura to help keep me calm. You're not supposed to see it."**

The hunter looked curiously and asked, **"And what spell is that?"**

The girl showed the page to him and pointed to the spell's name. **"This one,"** she said.

**"Oh, I see,"** he said with a nod. **"It sounds like it'll be good for stress and all that."**

Kathia, who was glad about the spell's efficiency, replied, **"Yep! And I probably won't even need to go to a doctor or take a pill."** Turning back to the book, she went to the next page and found the Anti-Anxiety Chant. Basically, it involved her chanting a magic word over and over again to remove anxiety. When combined with the calming aura, the effects of the two would be greater. The girl gave this a go and chanted, **"Galini, galini, galini."** The girl felt nothing, even when she spoke the same word a few more times. Either because she did it wrong or because the calming aura was masking its effect; she'll never know. Then she discovered another spell called the plant-blessing spell, which repelled insects and ensured a healthy garden. She decided to try out her spell on the grass outside the court. Her hand hovered over the grass and glowed in an aura of light green. She let the magic seep into the green blades until the aura disappeared. Kathia thought she did the spell right, but she wanted to test it out one more time on a flowered area of grass where a bumblebee was flying around. She walked over there and blessed the patched. Immediately, the bee flew away from the flower it was pollinating. The spell had worked like a charm. The girl made a small smile; thought it may not be useful to her, she thought that this would be a good spell for her gardeners to use. That is if they were still alive.

Jason enjoyed seeing the little magic show the girl did and asked, **"So Kat, what's your next spell?"**

The girl turned to the next page and answered, **"The Book-Blessing Spell."** She read all of the instructions and explained, **"It's a spell that makes your book more endurable and long-lasting in good condition."**

**"Ooh, that sounds neat!"** said the impressed man. Then he asked, **"Are you going to try it out on that book of yours?"**

**"Of course, what do you think?"** said Kathia obviously. She closed the book and began to follow the steps she had memorized in her mind. After channeling her magic energy again, her hand glowed in a soft white aura. She touched the book and let the energy engulf it in the same aura. The aura stayed visible for a few seconds before it seeped into the spell book. Opening the book again, she went to the next pages. But most of the ones up the intermediate section required certain items that were needed for the spells and some of the spells were not at the appropriate time for Kathia to use, such as the Cure Headache Spell as the girl wasn't having a headache right now. So she went to practice the plant-blessing spell by casting onto multiple sections of grass. This went on for three minutes until she became tired from spending nearly all of her low amount of magic energy. The girl panted and put a hand on her chest, where the ache was felt. **"Whoa, I think I need a break from magic,"**she said to herself.

**"Sounds like you do. Come on, let's go sit over at the bench,"** said Jason. They went over to the bench and took a seat.

Kathia took her time to rest and thought about the hunter's arrows. She figured archery would be another thing that she should learn, in case her magic powers run out. **"Hey Jason."**

The man looked to her and asked, **"Yeah?"**

The girl asked, **"Can you teach me how to be an archer like you? I mean I got to learn everything if I want to be good dragon slayer."**

Jason nodded and said, **"Sure, I can! We'll go practice on that small tree over there, since the hoops are too high for me to get my arrows back."** They left the court and went to the dogwood tree and put some distance between them for a shooting line. He handed over his bow and quiver to the girl. After she puts the quiver on and armed herself, the hunter started to explain the basics of archery, **"Okay listen up! You might think archery is easy by just picking up a bow and shooting. But it takes a lot more than that and you're bound to fail if you don't follow what I say properly. So first thing's first, we got to get you into the right stance."** He checked which hand Kathia was holding the bow and saw that it was in the left hand, which meant that she would be shooting the arrows in her other hand. **"You're right-handed, right?"**

**"Yes I am," **the girl replied.

**"Okay, put your left foot forward,"** instructed Jason. Kathia did put a step forward and waited to hear the next part, which the man said, **"Now put some space between your foot so that they're a shoulder width apart and don't forget to bring your right foot back, so you have an imaginary square between your legs."** The girl moved her right foot backwards and sideways until she was in what archers would call a "square stance". The hunter looked at her torso and saw that she was slouching a bit. Jason went to correct that, **"Now stand up straight and keep that chin of yours on the bow arm."**

Kathia straightened her torso up and tried to put her chin on top of her shoulder, but her neck hurt at the attempt and the highest her chin could reach was the side of the shoulder. **"Jason, I'm trying to put my head on my shoulder, but it won't reach,"** she spoke her trouble.

**"Well then, just keep it as close as possible. It doesn't have to be on the shoulder,"** said the hunter.

The girl relaxed her head and decided to leave it beside the shoulder. **"So what's next?"** she asked.

Jason said, **"You move your hips around so that they're tucked under the upper body and your lower back flat like a pancake."** Kathia turned her hips to the left, so that she was diagonal from the top left to the bottom right. **"Now lower your chest and ribs down to your stomach and push your shoulders down a bit,"** he said. After she did all that, the man smiled and nodded in content. **"There you go, now you're in perfect stance, kid! Now we move on to nocking."**

**"What is nocking?"** Kathia asked about the strange word she never heard before.

The man explained, **"It's when you hold the arrow the bowstring. It's a shame that word's not used much."** People, who don't know much about archery or are just new to it, rarely used the word, or much less hear about it.

The girl made a slight nod and said, **"Yeah, I understand that."**

Jason went back to the subject on hand and said, **"But anyway, Kathia, I want you to take out an arrow out of the quiver and put it on the colored part of the string and the arrow rest."** Before Kathia could ask what an arrow rest was, the man answered for her, **"It's that's bulky part on the bow that sits in front of the colored part."** So the girl put the arrow there and let it touched the nocking point. **"Okay, now turn that arrow until the fletching is aligned with the string,"** he instructed. After this was done, the next step was, **"Now get your bow arm forward and keep your fingers hooked onto the string and fletching. Pull the string back to the side of your side. All the way until you see the tip of your index finger at the corner of your mouth."** The girl pulled the string back until she could barely see her fingers. **"And now for the last part. We're going to shoot at the tree's trunk,**" he said pointing at the dogwood tree. **"What you want to do is point the tip of the arrow at the target, so that it would fly there and hit it right where you want it to. But don't forget to line up the bowstring with the center of the bow's limbs, okay?"**

**"Alright, got ya!"** Kathia said. **"So can I shoot?"**

**"Yes you can," **said Jason. The girl let go of the string and watched the arrow fly, hoping that it would hit the tree. It did; the arrow pierced the trunk and stood there. **"Good job!"** the man commented. **"Now let's see if you can hit its branches, too."**

Kathia grabbed another arrow and got ready to shoot with it. She moved her torso along with her bow, so that she was aiming for the branches on the left side. Once she had the arrow's point where she want it, she shoot it into the branch. But arrow managed to touch it, but unfortunately it slide through the branch's underside and left only a scratch. The girl murmured her disappointment with her miss, **"Dang!"**

Jason, however, wasn't; he knew that beginners may make mistakes on their first tries. **"Try again; you'll improve with each shot,"** he encouraged her. Kathia thought that her teacher was telling her to keep shooting at the tree until she ran out of arrows. So she went and did just that as she shot at various parts of the tree. Sometimes she hit it and other times she missed. In one of her attempts, she saw a robin flying in the sky. The girl decided to literally take a shot at the bird. She missed as the robin had been flying too fast for her arrow to reach in time. After the arrow fell down at the basketball court, the man let out a friendly laugh and said, **"You think you're ready for shoot things that move, huh?"**

The girl looked at him and replied casually, **"Hey, it was worth a try. I mean how else am I suppose to know if I good or not?"**

Jason reasoned with her, **"Yeah, but we ain't ready for moving targets. You still got to practice with the still ones first."**The man pointed to all the fallen arrows across them and continued, **"I've seen you miss a few times and I want you to be perfect at this before we move on the ones that move."**

**"Do I really have to?"** asked Kathia. She really wanted to learn how to shoot mobile targets right now, so that she could get closer to being a skilled dragon slayer.

**"Yes, you have to,"** Jason told her. Then he gestured her to continue. **"Now keep practicing or you won't be as good as I am,"** he said as he made a cheeky grin.

**"Fine, if you say so,"** said the girl. So she kept shooting at the tree until she ran out of arrows. Jason went to retrieve them all, so that he can give them back to her for more practice. After a little while later, Kathia's arms started to feel sore. They decided to take a rest until her arms would get better. In the meantime, the girl practiced her calming aura spells and anti-anxiety chants.

* * *

After a long day of training, along with some sword practice, it was now after sunset. Kathia and Jason went into his car and drove to the grocery store to see if they still have the delicious dragon meat and eggs in stock. As expected and much to their dismay, the Aquarians have banned such products from being sold in any store as they were deemed a barbaric in that it was the murder of dragons and their unborn. So they had to purchase the other needed groceries without them. Kathia accepted Jason's offer to take her home. So he drove through the city to look for her home. At first, Kathia had trouble pointing out the right directions the man needed to go as the once-familiar streets had been warped into a whole new world with different routes. The girl angrily cursed the dragons out for getting them lost.

Sometime later, Kathia had finally found a familiar place, albeit different in appearance, as she had known this street by heart. It was then that her directions started to become right and easier, thus enabling her to get to home. When they got to the mansion, the girl frowned at its makeover. The mansion's fancy and modern appearance has been turned to that of an old stony medieval fashion. _'How dare they turn my beautiful home into this ugly dump! I am so going to tear the place and remodel it later, but with magic of course,'_ she thought. Kathia may be a billionaire, but she didn't feel like hiring builders as they would cost money that she needed for college and other important stuff, and she also didn't want the help of dragons, too.

Jason interrupted her thoughts when he asked, **"So is this it? Your home, I mean."**

The girl answered in an annoyed tone, **"Oh yes... This is my home. This old-fashioned crap is my home."**

The man understood her disappointment and said, **"Wow... I feel for ya, girl. I'd be mad too, if I found out those monsters changed the inside of my home as well. And something tell me that I'm going to have a hard time finding my pad. I mean you know what happened tonight."**

**"I know, right?"** said Kathia agreeing with him. **"I totally hope one day I get to teach those dragons a lesson for changing our lives."**

**"Yeah, me too," **the man said. **"Anyway, take care and good night, Kathia."** After the girl returned her farewell, the car drove away from her residence.

Kathia went to the front door of the mansion and knocked on it. She knocked, because there was no longer a doorbell for her to ring. She waited a minute for someone to answer until a middle-aged maid came and opened the door. **"Yes, who is it?"** she asked.

Glad to see her most trusted servant here, the girl smiled and said, **"Hello Mrs. Merryweather, I'm home!"**

Happy to see the girl she's always looked after from a young age, the maid and the girl embraced each other in a hug. **"Oh Kathia, I'm so glad you survived that horrid mess. I was afraid you and your mother might have died out there,"** said Mrs. Merryweather. Then she looked around for Mrs. Rittevon, but she was nowhere in sight. **"Where is your mother?"** she asked.

**"She's dead, Mrs. Merryweather,"** Kathia answered grimly.

Look of sorrow and pity swarmed over the maid's face as she let go of the girl and said, **"Oh Kathia, I-I'm so sorry..."**

**"It's alright, Mrs. Merryweather," **said Kathia, stepping past her maid and going inside the mansion. **"The only ones who should be sorry for all this are those damned dragons. It's their fault why many people had to lose their families and their homes."** Her memories burned with the sorrow of the survivors from camp at yesterda and how she walked past some people saying that their original homes had been taken by others who got there first before they did. Shaking her fist, Kathia said, **"Those dragons are going to pay for this and I'll be the one who makes sure that they do in blood!"**

**"But Kathia!" **Mrs. Merryweather reasoned. **"There's many of them out there and only one of you; how do you plan on killing them all?"**

The girl turned around and showed her the spellbook, **"With magic of course, and some old weapons too."**

The maid's dark brown eyes ran from to the sheathed family sword resting on the girl's side and the shield, bow and quiver on her back. **"I see you're armed like a knight, dear. But you do know that Mayor Esteed has sold the city to dragons to make it illegal to slay them, right?"** she asked with disapproval in her tone for the mayor.

**"Yeah, I heard about it yesterday," **said Kathia, rolling her eyes. **"That stupid traitor,"** she whispered with contempt under her breath. She'll never vote for that man in the next election after what he just did. **"But don't worry, Mrs. Merryweather, they only said no killing inside the city. I bet they don't care what happens outside in the woods,"** she said.

**"Well you better be careful, because I don't want to lose you, too. You hear me?"** said the maid.

**"I know,"** said Kathia. Before she decided to make her way to her room, the girl asked, **"Hey my home wasn't taken by anybody was it?"** She had to make sure before she could get her lawyer and sue the thieves for stealing her mansion.

Mrs. Merryweather assured, **"Oh don't worry dear, I made sure nobody besides you stepped foot inside the mansion."**

**"Well good, that's exactly what I needed to hear. Thanks Mrs. Merryweather,"** said Kathia gratefully.

**"You're welcome, dear!"** the maid said and nodded.

Kathia went upstairs to the bathroom and took a bath. Then she went to her room and changed into her pajamas. She opened the spellbook and went to the page with the Dream Recall spell. The girl followed the methods to the spell and cast it before she went to bed.

* * *

Aeolus sat in his cave thinking about the attack on the refugee camp and analyzing how well it went. His tornado alone had done a great deal of damage to both the humans' home and population. The survivors that had fled the camp were few in number before they got killed by the other dragons. It seems like with the ability to cause tornadoes and earthquakes, he was powerful enough to do a mass extermination on the human race. With a few dragons at his side, they could make his conquest easier. But these dragons had to be the best and have special abilities to add to the group's arsenal. He was thinking about taking the night magi, Eitri, with him due to his being able to see in the dark and a wide range of magic that included the invisibility spell. Hewey the healer dragon should come too as his healing magic would be useful in mending wounds and injuries. A pygmy dragon who can go inside human territory for reconnaissance would be useful, too. A shadow dragon who can melt into the shadows and unleash surprise attacks is also welcome. A phoenix dragon to make everlasting fires and a storm dragon for creating storms to interfere with the enemy's prowess. This was how Aeolus was going to destroy all the humans in Solomos. Along the way in the whole continent, he may encounter other breeds of dragons with useful abilities and have a stronger horde. The disaster dragon left his cave and went to go talk to Doubloon for permission to take some of his villagers with him on his quest.

The disaster dragon entered the chieftain's cave and padded slowly so that he don't abruptly disturb the dragon's sleep. As Aeolus neared, Doubloon sensed his presence by smell and woke up from his rest. **"Oh Aeolus, what is it that I can help you with?"** he asked.

**"Well Chief Doubloon, I was thinking about how powerful my tornado was in demolishing the humans' nest and how I can easily wipe out the humans with just that and my earthquakes. But of course, there may be humans who would find ways to prevent my powers from doing any damage to them whether it be by the new tools they made or their magic,"** said Aeolus. **"I was thinking about bringing with me a few dragons with the best and useful powers to help me purge Solomos of those wretched creatures before they breed up back their numbers and wage another war against us."** He proposed the following dragons to bring with him, **"I would like to take Eitri, Hewey, Leafwing, Zylanon, Corona, and Lutarn as their abilities would be a valuable asset to my team."**

Doubloon said that he'll give Aeolus the dragons he needed, but first they need to give him their consent first. The chief telepathically asked the dragons if they want to go with Aeolus to destroy the humans around Solomos and they all said "yes". He looked back to the disaster dragon and told him that they'll go with him in the morning, but Eitri and Zylanon will have to meet up with the group at night as they are nocturnal dragons. Aeolus understood and the green dragon went back to his cave.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I was going to put a sword training scene in this chapter, but I would have ended up making it longer than it should have been. A new protagonist will be showing up in the next chapter and she'll be having a romantic story in this fanfic, stay tuned!

I've gotten the magic spells in this story from sites like spellsandmagic and magickspellcraft

Mrs. Merryweather, Leafwing, Corona, Zylanon, Lutarn, and Hewey (c) me

Jason (c) En'K'Haral (or Enkaharal on DeviantArt)


	13. Attack of the Killer Vines

**Chapter 12: Attack of the Killer Vines**

Minerva, blonde-haired and blue-eyed woman, came to the park and went over to the bench. She had woken up earlier than usual and decided to take a short walk outside since it was close to morning. She found a brunette man, her age, sitting there and another person, a teen boy, laying down on a different bench. She went over to the man and asked, **"Excuse me, do you mind if I sat next to you?"**

The man replied solemnly, **"...Yes."** He moved the bag beside him to make room for the 20-year-old girl.

Minerva took a seat next to the man and looked at the view in front of her for a bit. She felt the gentle breeze blow onto her skin. **"So are you an early bird, too?"** she asked. **"I woke this morning, because I slept earlier yesterday. And usually, I go to bed at ten,"** she said.

The man remained silent for a few seconds before reply, **"Some noise at the house woke me up. Had to go somewhere."**

**"I see," **said Minerva. She tried to think of what else to say to keep the conversation going, but no words seem to come to her mind yet. _'Hmm, what else can I say?'_ she wondered. She would have asked if the dogs barking woke him but, she figured that if it was that, he would have specifically said so. Which leaves her other guess... **"Think it was some annoying neighbors?"** she asked. The question sounded a bit funny

**"…****In the house,"** the man rephrased. **"****Old alchemist that owns a store in the market district."** He lied back on the bench a bit with his arms crossed.

**"Oh right,"** said the woman, feeling embarrassed that she made a misunderstanding about where the noise came from. **"So I take it you must be his tenant? Or is it the other way around?"** she asked. She didn't know if she was making another mistake, but the words have been said and she would have to wait for his response. Maybe he had a house on top of the store; that was another guess.

The man paused again before correcting her and asking, **"****Grandparent...Do you always make bad guesses to people you just meet?"**

**"I-I'm sorry,"** said Minerva, ashamed of making another guess. **"I'm just trying to have a conversation, that's all,"** she said, looking away from his eyes. She worried that she might have made herself look bad in front of his eyes. That or maybe he was just grumpy. **"I'm not annoying you, am I?"** she asked, looking back to him nervously.

The man responded with a hand gesture where his index finger and thumb are almost touching each other. **"****A bit, but you're still sitting here,"** he said with a neutral tone.

Getting the hint that her presence was annoying, Minerva got up and said, **"Oh sorry... Okay then, I'll get going now."** Then she walked away to resume her little exercise. She walked around through the rest of the park like the basketball court and children's playground until she had finished her path there. The woman left the park and walked through town to get back to her home. She turned around the street corner and walked down through the neighbor. Just then a man in a white hoodie or rather a cloak, Minerva didn't know what to call his strange clothing in question, almost ran into her. **"Wah!"** she screamed and flinched in surprise.

**"Woah!"** the stranger shouted as he reacted at the last second by jumping and flipping over her, landing on the other side of her in a tuck and roll maneuver. He kept moving but he turned back to apologize, saying, **"Sorry ma'am!"**

Minerva forgave him and said, **"It's alright, I didn't know you were around the corner either."** He breathed a sigh of relief since he didn't harm her and resume his run. The woman walked on as well.

After halfway through the street, a lone gray-bearded man wearing a dirty brown jacket and a hat came out of the alley to see the pretty young woman passing by. **"Hey missy, what's pretty little thing doing out this early?"** he asked with a toothy grin.

The blonde stopped in her tracks and suddenly felt her nervous instincts telling her to beware of this man. **"Oh uh, nothing... I was just on my way home, that's all,"** she answered as confidently as she could while trying to mask the shyness squeezing on her her.

**"Oh really now? Well you might want to hurry up, because the dark isn't safe for a lone lady like you,"** said the man, taking a step closer to her.

Minerva backed away and said, **"Oh don't worry. I think I can look after myself. I'll just run along and then..."** As she made her way to the side, she bumped into a bigger and uglier man.

**"Hey where you think ya going? We just want to have fun!"** the bigger man said showing his missing teeth in a scary smile. At this point, Minerva was getting more nervous by the second. She looked from the approaching man and his buddy next to her.

The bearded man whipped out a knife and threatened, **"Hand over your money, lady, or we'll have to cut you!"**

**"But I don't have any money on me," **Minerva said timidly.

**"Then I guess we'll just have to nab you and take you with us. Larry, grab her!"** the bearded man said.

Before the blonde could get away, Larry the thug grabbed her with strong arms to keep her from moving. **"Aahh, let go of me!"** Minerva cried.

A male voice in a foreign accent commanded, **"Let her go."**

The thugs and Minerva turned to see the same hooded man on a grand copper dragon. Knowing that they don't stand a chance against a dragon, the thugs decided to flee as the bearded man said, **"Come on, Larry, let's go!"**

**"Coming!" **Larry said and then they ran away.

Minerva looked to her saviors and said gratefully, **"Oh thanks for saving me. I don't know what would have happened if you didn't come."**

The man smirked through his hood at Minerva. **"It was no trouble. I don't much enjoy the sight of kidnapping, or any crime really,"** he stated. He tapped the dragon signaling him to turn. The dragon turned around and they started their way back.

The woman watched the duo fly away and continued on her way back to the house. After she got home, she ate breakfast and walked to her navy blue car. She got inside and drove on her way to work. She was an intern journalist and activist for a dragon rights organization called the Association for Dragon Rights, or ADR for short. She got to the parking lot and parked her car at the space closest to the door. Then she went inside the building and signed in. The woman went to her workplace and sat at the computer where she resumed her essay on why the dragons attacked the humans after breaking free. She typed out the causes and reasons for the tragedy a few days ago, so that humanity won't make their past mistakes again. She hoped that this essay would convince people to reform themselves and probably make amends with the dragons.

* * *

The dream recall spell went into effect. In Kathia's dream, the city was on fire with flames blazing high into the pitch black sky. Screams of panic sounded in the atmosphere as dragons were running rampant and killing many people, while wrecked everything in sight. In the middle of it all stood Kathia who watched on with fear at all the chaos that was going around. A man was felled by a fireball and and a screaming woman was clawed and torn by pygmies that were on her body. The creatures ripped off pieces of her flesh and threw them to the side, even when the woman had died. Not wanting to stand around anymore, the redhead girl went and made a run for it. Unfortunately, a male vampire dragonet cut into her path after he dropped down from the sky in front of her, astonish the girl. He roared out at her, showing his long pointing fangs. Kathia screamed and saw her life flashed right before her eyes. It was all over for her. The dragon was going to kill her and it would be the end of everything.

Before the vampire could do anything to the poor girl, a trio of arrows pierced its side and one more on its neck. The beast roared in pain as blood started pouring from his wounds. The girl stopped screaming and heard a familiar voice shouting, **"Hey Kathia!"** She turned her head and looked to see her savior; it was Jason. He tossed her a sword and said, **"Here, take this!"**The weapon landed right by her feet. Kathia bent over to pick up as she listened to Jason saying, **"You want to avenge your parents, right? Well now's your chance; kill that lizard and his buddies. Go teach them not to mess with us, humans."**

The girl looked at the sword for a few seconds before turning her attention to the staggering dragonet. Her all her fears had eroded away, only to be replaced by the anger and hatred she felt towards him and his kind. Her brown eyes glared at him and she brought up the sword to attack. **"This is for me, my parents, and everyone else you've hurt in this city!"** she yelled. The blade swung down on the dying dragonet's neck and severed the head from the body. Blood sprayed out of the vampire's neck as the body fell over dead. Kathia breathed angry breaths as she stared at both the headless body and its head. The dragons stopped their rampage when they smelled the scent of blood from one of their own. They all turned their rage on that one girl who dared to murder their fellow dragon. They charged at Kathia, eagerly to avenge the vampire dragonet. The girl wasn't afraid at all, despite the overwhelming numbers against her. She shouted a war cry and she thrust her arm into the air as electricity coursed around it. Lightning bolts fell from the sky and electrocuted some of the dragons. The survivors didn't bother to check on their fallen, so they kept coming at her. The dragon got into close proximity and had almost breathed fire on her, but then a magic dome appeared around Kathia and unleashed a sonic boom that threw all the monsters back and made them fell on the ground.

The girl went to finish them off while they were down by casting rays of magical beams that shot out of her hands into the air before they rapidly grew larger and fell down onto the dragons as huge beams. Pained roars were made by the beast as the spell disintegrated them into ashes. Now the beasts were reduced to one, a yellow dragonet who was lucky to survive the lightning bolt. With pain, he lifted his head up and opened his green eyes to see the fate of all his comrades and the killer before him. He shuddered in fear when Kathia glared at him and held a hand glowing with magical energy at him. She said to him in a menacing tone, **"You shouldn't have bitten the hand that fed you."** Despite how much his body hurt, the dragonet got up and turned to flee in a desperate attempt to save his life before the human could take it away. But the girl fired her magic beam at him and vaporized him.

The dragons were no more. Now there would be nothing else burned or somebody else killed. The human citizens happily ran over to their red-haired savior and lift her up, like a baseball team would their best player after they won, and cried cheers. They were all saying, **"Kathia, you saved us!" "My hero!" "You're totally awesome!" "How did you do it?"** and **"It's a miracle!"**

The girl looked down at all the people and smiled with pride at being called a hero for accomplishing something so great. A booming voice that was unheard by all, except Kathia, said to her, _"Though you have lost loved ones and had your life changed by tragedy, you are indeed destined for something great. Something, no ordinary human being would ever have. With power, strength, skills, and wits by your side, you can bring power and prosperity back to humanity and bring ruin to the dragons you despise."_ At the end of her dream, the girl was enthusiastic for the destiny she was promised.

* * *

Kathia woke up with the memories of dream that wasn't as hazy as all the previous ones had been. The Dream Recall spell had worked like it was supposed to. She even remembered the words spoken to her. There had no one among the crowd of dream people who said it to her, but it was most likely that the dream itself might have been talking to her. The girl grinned with glee as she thought, _'If what that dream said is true, then whoo hoo! I'm so going to be famous in history!'_ Then she looked to the clock next to her on the dresser; it said 8:13 am. The redhead opened her mouth for a silent yawn before she lifted herself from the pillow and set her feet onto the hard wooden floor. The first thing she did was go to the computer for some morning news, since the TV had been broken in the attack three nights ago. She went to the news website and the first thing that caught her eye was that people all over the world has retreated from their cities to make refuges in the woods. That didn't seem like news at all as this was what she and the other humans did exactly at the night of the dragon rampage. But then the news site's frame automatically scrolled to the side and told about dragons attacking these refugee camps. It was clear that the rebellion against their former masters and achieving freedom wasn't enough, so they sought to exterminate their enemies once and for all.

**"No!"** she gasped. If this was what's going on right now, then there was only a matter of time before the Aquarian dragons here in Windfall turn the human citizens over to the outside dragons for the kill. Sure the Aquarians said that they were going to protect the humans from the other dragons, but Kathia couldn't trust them at all, because they were dragons for Pete's sake. And even if they aren't lying, their redesign of the city and the change of lifestyle were dragons telling humans what to do and how to live their lives. Plus their kind still needed to pay for all they've done.

**"I must work harder on mastering my magic spells faster!"** she said to herself. Not only that, she also needed to hone her sword and bow skills as a dragon slayer. And as an upperclass citizen and heir to the Rittevon Co., she needed to find a way to donate supplies to the refugee camps in a order to better themselves in this harsh environment without the dragons knowing, find a way to make money and keep herself rich to be able to provide for others.

The money part was going to be a problem. In order to take over her father's company, she needed to get a university degree in business and Kathia was just a senior in high school. So who was going to run as president of Rittevon Co? Well probably the vice president if he survived the attack. She hoped he would manage the company well in her place until her time comes. As for her servants, she would need to pay them all using her parents' vast amount of money. She thought about laying some of them off so that she could save enough cash for her college classes in the future as well as textbooks and other school supplies. She would hire them back again once she had graduated.

After the girl was done thinking out her life plans, Kathia went downstairs for breakfast that had been cooked by Mrs. Merryweather.

* * *

Aeolus's horde members had gathered to meet him at his cave for departure. The green disaster dragon said farewell to Doubloon, who wished him and the other dragons luck and safety in the world outside. The Vulture Horde, which Aeolus named, walked out through the tunnels and upon nearing the exit, Bam ran in front and stopped them to say, **"Aeolus, you're going to destroy the humans, aren't you?"**

**"I am, and?"** the disaster dragon asked, wondering what his childhood friend had to say.

The navy blue said, **"Take me with you. I want to help crush all the humans in Solomos."**

Zylanon, the shadow dragon, who looked at the blue dragon with doubt, and asked, **"You? And what could you possibly contribute to this group, Bam? Aeolus only wants the best breeds of dragons with the right powers. All you can do is breathe fire and that's just it."**

**"So what? At least that's something,"** Bam countered, defensively. **"Besides I want to see these humans suffer after all the terrible things they did to all of us and... to me,"** he said, murmuring with vengeance at the end.

Aeolus thought about it for a second before he answered, **"Fine, you can come with us, if you must. But if things are getting too much for you, I'll be forced to send you back here in the village."**

**"Thanks Aeolus," **said Bam. **"I promise I won't let you down."** Then the horde of 8 dragons left the village and flew off to look for humans to destroy.

* * *

The Firestars woke up and left the ruined city with the sisters riding their aunt as she flew out over the woods. After 20 miles, they saw smoke rising above the trees with dragons flying around it. Danielle pointed to the scene and said, **"Aunt Atwas, wook!"**

**"Yes I see, Danielle,"** the magi said. **"It looks like the other dragons are destroying a human settlement."** The Firestars could see the refugee camp burning on fire with human screams filling the air. The men tried to fight back with spears and other tools they could wield, but these weapons failed to fight back against breath attacks and magic. Atlas could care less about these humans dying, after all they've done to her kind. _'Goddamn slave-driving scums; serves you right!'_ she thought.

One dragon hovered above the camp as he looked down at it and grinned with joy at the people suffering. **"Die humans die! The whole world will be better off without any of you filthy creatures around,"** he said.

_'Damn right!'_ Atlas thought agreeing with him as she flew past and away from the camp. _'Without humans, we'll never have anymore problems with them again!' _They were all scum from the deep to the outside. No wait, the "all" part was definitely not true. Henry and Yukki weren't like the majority of the humans around the world. If they were, they would have killed her and enslaved her nieces. Atlas couldn't believe that she wanted them off of Veleia; not after all they've done for the family. But the other dragons attacking the camp might not think the same thing about the white-haired siblings. Perhaps they or the other dragons would go after them next.

But Atlas would not allow that to happen; she would fight against her kind to protect these two if they ever tried to lay a claw on them. So in case Henry and Yukki were under attack, Atlas closed her eyes and pictured the two in her mind. She channeled energy to her mind and teleport the tracking spell onto them, so that if they were ever in danger she would warp to them on time.

* * *

After she had eaten her breakfast, Kathia decided to try out the familiar spell on Mrs. Merryweather to see if it would strengthen the bond between the two. She wasn't sure if the spell worked or not, because she already liked the maid and had respect for her. But the girl did seem to feel a little happier around the maid for a short while until Kathia left to go outside and practice her spells. But before she did, the girl told the maid of some useful household spells like the anti-cockroach spell and the plant blessing spell, which the maid was glad to learn because she had lost her disbelief in magic after hearing about the mages who worked to rebuild the city.

Kathia went to the courtyard and went up to the plants in the red jars. She practiced her plant blessing spells on them to repel the harmful bugs and ensure their healthy looks. The plants glowed in a light green aura for a short while until the spell sunk into their bodies. _'Well it's nice to make my garden look good and all, but I want to more useful spells than this,'_ she thought. _'Where in the book can I find some really interesting spells?'_ She turned page after page until she found the one spell that caught her eye; the levitation spell, but her body needed to become more used to magic before she could try it out. So the girl flipped back to one of the spells to try out the No Wind spell.

No Wind was a spell that halted non-magical winds from blowing at the area where the castor cast it. It was breezing right now and it was a good time to test this spell out. Kathia read the book's instructions first on how to cast it. Then she raised her hand out at the direction where the breeze came from and said the magic words, **"Nullus Magis Ventus!"** Then the wind stopped blowing. Content that the spell worked, the girl could see that it was useful in stopping winds from doing annoying things like trying to blow away her stuff or blow dust into her eyes. _'I should practice this spell more often so that I can remember the words by heart,'_ she thought. Then she turned the page to the next spell, how to create blessed water.

To make the holy water, one must find a source of clean water and cast white magic energy into it. But the water must not be too big like lakes and oceans for example for the spell might not work as it'll fade trying to spread out throughout the whole water source. The book also said that blessed water, once drunken, will purify the body of mild diseases and hexes, heal internal injuries that aren't too severe, and power up the user's magic energy. _'Yes! Something that will help me in dragon hunts!'_ Kathia thought happily. She went back inside the mansion and took a cup from the cupboard. Then she went over to the sink where Mrs. Merryweather was washing the dishes. **"Excuse me,"** the girl said as the maid moved over to let the girl pour water into the cup.

The maid asked, **"Oh Kathia, getting yourself a drink of water, eh?"**

**"No, I'm going to turn this water into holy water," **the girl answered.

**"Holy water? How are you going to do that? I thought this was a church thing,"** asked Mrs. Merryweather, raising a brow at her employer's curious attempt.

**"With magic of course,"** said the girl. She reread the instructions again on how to use white magic energy and it said that one's mind must be benevolently pure to channel the energy and have a desire to heal. So Kathia thought up of nice things like helping Mrs. Merryweather make chores easier, heal the sick and wounded, mend the wounded hearts of those who suffered through tragedy. Her hand over the cup started glowing in a light blue aura, chanted the magic words, and she let the energy sink into the water. The water became blessed as it started glowing light blue and it would remain that way for a long while.

Kathia drank it to see how much it would make her magic stronger. She waited for a bit to see what the effects would have on her body, but nothing happened. Oh well, Kathia guessed she wasn't supposed to feel a thing. Maybe if she were to cast a few spells, she might see a difference. The girl used her calming aura and became relaxed. She looked at the next spell in the book and discovered magical writing. Basically, the wizard had to enchant a writing tool such as a pen or pencil and the thing would come to life and write down whatever he or she said. She went to try it out by taking up a pen and turning the book over to a blank page before the Table of Contents. She channeled magic energy into the pen and willed it to come to life. The pen floated over the book, waiting for its master's commands. The girl thought a bit about something to say until she got an idea. **"I want to be an almighty and powerful wizard,"** she said. Just as expected, the pen wrote down every word she said. Seeing as all of the spells she had cast, except for the few mishaps when she had been just introduced to magic, Kathia felt like she was ready to cast the next level of spells. Perhaps she could try out that levitation spell next.

The girl focused her mental magic energy onto the cup and willed it to float up suspended in the air. Then she made the cup fly around in various directions and had fun doing so. Mrs. Merryweather put the last dish into the dish drying rack and turned around to see the sight that made her jump in surprise. **"****Oh my! Kathia, are you doing this?"** she asked.

**"****Yep!"** the girl answered. **"****I'm practicing my levitation spell."** She brought the chair up to join the cup and let it hover up. She could feel bit of strain when she did that, but Kathia didn't mind. **"****You know, you could use this spell to make your chores easily, but you'll have to start with newbie spells first or you'll get hurt,"** she said.

**"****You don't say,"** the maid said with a newfound interest in magic.

Kathia said, **"****You just got to read the first page in the book. It'll tell you how to cast magic."** She let the chair float down back on the floor and let the cup land gracefully on the table. She handed the spell book to Mrs. Merryweather and said, **"****You can start learning right now, while I go for out for fresh air."**

**"Thanks, Kathia,"** the maid said, delighted with her employer's generosity.

**"****You're welcome,"** the redhead said before she left the kitchen. She went up to her room to take her sword, shield, bow, &amp; arrows with her, because she might go dragon-slaying later. Then she went into her parents' room to take her father's wallet. She'll need money to buy herself another spell book, since Mrs. Merryweather is using the other one to learn convenient spells. Then Kathia went over to the phone and called a taxi to pick her up. After a while later, she looked out the window and saw that the cab had arrived. She went over to the front door and exited her home. She got into the taxi cab and told the driver to take her to the bookstore from yesterday.

After 25 minutes later, which was due to the traffic caused by dragons sometimes being in the way, the taxi had reached the place. Kathia paid the driver, left the cab, and went inside the store to purchase another spellbook. This time it was a book about using elemental magic. After checking out the spells inside, an excited smile spread across her face and she said to herself, **"Oh good! I am so totally going to kill those dragons with these spells!"** She couldn't wait to try out her new arsenal of magic after she purchased the book.

**"****That's not going to work,"** said a young male voice from somewhere.

**"Huh? Who said that?"** asked Kathia, wondering who was trying to shoot down her idea. She turned to see a 19-year-old blue-eyed brunette next to her. The girl placed her hand on her hip and asked in an annoyed tone, **"Oh I don't suppose you have a better idea on how I can kill these things?"** The boy sounded like he was mad about the "slay dragons" thing. The girl guessed that he might be one of those pathetic dragon sympathizers.

The guy put his hand in his pocket and stood in silence for a very few seconds before saying, **"Start with the obvious. Dragons are masters at magic. It pretty much runs in their veins. You'd have an easier time learning about them first."**

**"Well thanks for the tip, mister. But you should know that not all dragons use magic,"** said Kathia, feeling smart. It was pretty much a fact as there were non-magical breeds such as the mint dragons, pygmy dragons, harvest dragons, black tips, albinos, and more. But thanks to the stranger's helpful advice, now she felt a desire to go look for a book or guide about the many breeds of dragons. So that when she goes hunting, she can pick out the weaker dragons to hunt first before she became more experienced and skilled. **"Well ta-ta, pal. I got a guidebook to go find,"** she said before she turned around and left.

The guy said after her, **"****You better know what you're doing. It's our fault they attacked anyway."**

The girl stopped and looked back at him for a second. **"Hah!"** Kathia cried confidently. She wagged her finger and said, **"I'll have you know that I have killed three dragons before and one of them was a black dragon."** Though she nearly died in the battle with such a dangerous breed, the girl refused to be discouraged by the man's words of caution. Well not that she was going to recklessly throw away her life fighting, but she was going to keep to her goals as fearlessly as she can while being smart about it. She went to the non-fiction section where books on dragon breeds are. She found one that was titled _"Dragons around the World"_ and looked through the pages that showed pictures and told info about each breed. **"Perfect!"** exclaimed. The girl grabbed the book and joined the line, where she waited until it was her turn to get the two books purchased. After the first people in front of her left, the cashier rang up the books and Kathia paid for them in cash. The books were placed in a bag and the girl took them with her out the door. Then she saw the rain falling lightly from the sky. **"Damn it, I should have brought my umbrella and jacket with me,"** the girl cursed herself. Then she looked through the spell book to see if there were any spells to protect her from the rain. She found a bubble barrier spell and cast it onto herself. The spell did the trick as the thin liquid barrier blocked all the raindrops and let them sit on its surface. The girl walked through the streets on her way to the forest to try her hand at hunting again. Maybe with the skills she learned from Jason yesterday, her survival rate would improve.

* * *

A while later, Kathia was in the woods searching for whatever dragon she could find. But for a while, no dragon showed up in her view. She decided to take time to read over a few spells and practice them one at a time while she traveled. Her hunt took a long time until she finally saw a purple dragoness. The slayer took out her dragon guide book and read what it said about that breed. The purple dragons were a docile breed whose only magic is to increase fertility in other dragons. _'Well that's not much of a threat! I'll just have to kill it and be done with it,'_ she thought. She drew her bow and took an arrow out of the quiver. She aimed it at the dragoness's head and shot it there. The arrow hit her and the purple fell over dead. Pumping her fist in satisfaction and triumph, Kathia cried, **"Yes!"** She went over to the dragoness's body and used her sword to cut off her two yellow antennae as prizes for her kill.

The girl even retrieved the arrow out of the dragoness's skull and walked away to look for more dragons to kill. 10 minutes later, the girl came to a hill that was near a stream and a bunch of trees surrounded a variety of plants. She decided to take a break and sit on the hill. The rain had stopped, but Kathia wasn't going to take her chances letting her bubble barrier down yet. There was a chance that it might rain again. The girl had forgotten to check the weather report online before coming out into the woods. **"Stupid me,"** she cursed herself. Well it didn't matter now anyway. Kathia decided to practice one of the spells, which was the burning touch spell and watched her hand become blazed in fire. The fire was harmless on her body as she was the controller of this spell.

Then, an idea came to her mind. Most dragons breathed fire, right? If she were to burn the bodies of dragons she killed, they might suspect one of the members of their own kind responsible for the attack. But of course there were going to be some evidences of the sword and arrows having the beasts killed. But surely there would be a magic spell to cover that up, right?

Suddenly, Kathia was attacked by four vines that had appeared from the ground and lunged at her. The girl recoiled in surprise and cried, **"Ack!"** The vines smacked the bubble barrier and popped it. Then they grabbed onto her limbs and the girl struggled to free herself. **"Let go of me!"**she screamed. She channeled the fire magic energy through her whole arms and then her legs to cover them in flames. She could feel herself getting warm when she did that.

The flames reached the vines and caused them to lose their grip on the teenager. Throughout their burning and dying states, they lash at her for a short time while Kathia swatted them away before they withered into ashes. For a brief moment, she stared in silence wondering what the heck were those vines and how they able to move on their own. Just then, several vines rose from the ground, appearing stronger and with sharp thorns on them. They whipped at the dragon slayer's non-ignited parts with the thorns adding little damage and sometimes snagging onto her clothes for a second. The pain had felt like that of a real whip. Kathia winced and cried 'ouch' from each strike. As she covered her head with her left arm, she yelled, **"Get away from me!"** As she grabbed the sword from her sheath, one of the vines tripped her and made the girl fall onto her bottom. The fires from her legs and arms touched the grass and started its conquest to spread and torch every flora, starting with the ground.

With the sword now in hand, Kathia stood back up while taking a lash to her arm. She swung at the vines to cut them down while letting the burning touch spell spread through her whole body until she was completely enveloped in flames. At this point her body started to feel hot, but she didn't put her concern on that as she was too busy fighting for her life.

It seems as though the more the girl resisted, the more force that's used as a response. The flames reaching the ground caused it to rumble. Kathia shook for a moment as she tried to keep her balance. Then more plants rose out of the ground, this time with plants shooting projectiles such as blade-like leaves and thorns. The lashing vines stopped with the whipping attacks, and instead attack with brute force while the thorns on them act to puncture. Some have been strengthen to try to resist the flames. The slayer winced and gritted her teeth in pain as she took her shield and used it to block the attacks. Kathia backed away from the plants as she defended herself and fend off the vines with her sword. Soon, her legs entered the stream and the flames were extinguished by the water. The heat energy in her body warmed up the cool stream. The hunter continued to walk backward until she was far enough to turn tail and retreat.

She ran through the woods until the hill and its vines were no longer in site. Her burning touch spell was also dispelled as Kathia didn't want to be slowed down by the heat burning her. She sat down against the tree to catch her breath for a few seconds before she asked, **"What the heck was that?! There's no way these plants wouldn't have been about to move on their own."** The more she thought about her encounter, the more she felt familiar with it until she figured out why. **"Unless..."** she said before she read through her guide book and looked to the page on vine dragons. These were very violent dragons that lived underground and use their vines to attack. She had once had one as a slave until he died of injury and exhaustion. **"Of course..."** she murmured to herself.

Now that she knew the vines belonged to that of a dragon, she needed to plan out her strategy on how to kill it so that she would get it next time. She knew that the vines were thorny and that the plants can shoot their leaves and thorns. The best thing to do was to keep her distance on the other side of the stream and use the trees for cover against the leaves. Magic should be her only offensive tool in this hunt as she needed that long distance for safety. She should also get herself some eye-wear protection so that the small and thin projectiles don't cut her eyes and damage her vision. Kathia made her way back to Windfall to buy what she needs and use the other spell book at home to heal her damages.

* * *

**Author's Note:** So Kathia's hunt ends in defeat, but at least she's not going to the hospital this time. So anyway, what do you guys think of my new protagonist, Minerva? Sure her start might look bland, but I plan for more interesting things to happen with her in the far future. She will appear in the next chapter along with Ronan, Drake, and some bad guys.

Minerva (c) me  
Ronan and Drake (c) LordTorch18  
Colin and Green (c) Flamedramon2657


	14. Arson and Murder

**Author's Note: **Since LordTorch18's characters are related to the NPC gangsters, I'm going to put their POV in the story, so that we can all understand the events better.

* * *

**Chapter 13: Arson and Murder**

Ronan and Drake roamed the city. Ronan kept looking at all the mercenaries and any criminals he could see. He was looking for one in particular. **"Drake, you see any marks?"** He asked the grand copper dragon, referring to a unique tattoo marking that the criminal gang he was looking for wore on them.

Drake looked to his left and noticed the gang mark his partner was looking for. **"Ronan, there,"** he said.

Ronan looked at the man, who had noticed them. **"I'll tail 'em on foot, cut him off at the other side,"** he said to the dragon before he jumped off and ran after the thug who had begun to panic and run for his life. Drake took to the sky and followed. He shot ice out of his mouth and froze the ground in front of the man, who ended up slipping and sliding. Drake curved the ice and caused him to slam into a wall. Ronan caught up to him easily from that. He picked up the man and said in an angry tone, **"Where's your leader, you murderous scum? I won't ask again."** He didn't notice it, but he was making a bit of a scene that a few people had stopped to stare at and see what was going on.

The gang member spit at the man's face and answered defiantly, **"Hah, like I'm ever going to answer to a random bum like you!"** He noticed the people nearby and thought that maybe if he could be pretend to be a helpless victim being assaulted, then they would take his side and treat Ronan like a criminal. Then he would make his getaway and tell the boss that the man in the white hooded cloak was still alive.

Ronan gave him a deathly glare. **"I can see in your eyes you don't know me... but your people... and your boss... they do. I'm going to let you go... you tell your boss that the family he burned down in the deserts... it's about to come back to haunt him... and kill him,"** he said with fire in his voice. **"If I see you about to kidnap or kill anyone... my sword will taste your blood."** He turned and threw the thug. Drake didn't like seeing his partner this fired up. He knew Ronan needed to stop but it wouldn't be as easy as flipping as switch.

The man quickly dashed off away and went into the alleys. He went through the door to the secret base and went to the boss's office. **"Boss, remember that family in the deserts that you killed? Well apparently one of them is alive and... he's got a dragon with him,"** he said.

The bald-headed boss, whose name was Keith, drummed his fingers on the chair's arm and said, **"Ah... so one of the rats from the nest survived, eh? Well tell me everything about him so that we can go find him and kill him."**

The thug described his attacker, **"Well he's wearing a white hooded clothing and I think he had weapons on him."** His eyes went off to the side for a bit as he tried to remember what he and the dragon looked like. **"And his dragon... I think he was like a light brown in color,"** he said.

**"Hmph, typical dragon sympathizers; always bringing up the absurd notion that dragons are just like us in every way. I swear they're trying to bring down mankind by equating these beasts with us,"** Keith said with disapproval. **"Very well, we'll kill these two while we wait for our spy to finish infiltrating A.D.R."** He pushed the button on the announcer and said, **"Listen up, men! One of our members has just discovered a survivor from that family in the desert. He's wearing white clothes with a hood and is partnered with a dragon. I need you all find him and kill him."**

* * *

Minerva finished typing the essay and printed out the papers to put into the book. A seemingly normal man was passing by her as he looked around in the workplace. To the others, he was simply an employee in the A.D.R.; but in reality, he was actually a spy who was here to map out the area so that the terrorists can come to destroy this place later. The spy known as Aldric carried a clipboard with a few sheets of paper and drew down everything like rooms, sections, floors and where the stairs and elevators were at.

* * *

The gangsters went to look for the man that the other thug described. They kept their eyes sharp on the streets to see if he was among the citizens, peered inside stores to see if he was there, and checked the sky for any sign of them. After crossing the intersection, they spotted someone past a pair of walking women in front of them and noticed he was wearing a white apparel with a hood. One of the gang members, who had short hair, pointed to that person and murmured to the others,**"Look, there he is. I think I see him."**

Another gang member, who had curly hair and a mustache, was in doubt as he asked, **"Yes, but where's his dragon?"**

The short-haired guy shrugged and replied, **"I don't know. Probably off boning some dragoness, I think."**

The others frowned as they were not amused with that little guess of his. The blonde man asked in sarcasm, **"Mm hmm... And I suppose a friend would go and carelessly leave his buddy behind, right?"**

**"Hey, you never know. Some dragons might be stupider than the others,"** said the short-haired one. **"I still think we should check. You know, just to make sure I'm right."**

Even though he was skeptical, the mustached man decided to go along with his subordinate's idea. **"Alright fine, we'll go see if this guy's our man,"** he said. They followed their target and waited for the right time to strike. They needed the ladies to leave, because any witnesses watching them kill would spell trouble for the group. When they got near a women's apparel shop, the female couple went inside to do some shopping. The gang finally got a clear look at the guy they were stalking. It turned out to be a preteen kid wearing a hoodie and jeans. No one was surprised as they knew it couldn't be the survivor. **"See? It's not him, you fool! We wasted a minute following this kid and probably missed the real deal,"** the mustached guy complained to the short-haired subordinate. **"I swear if that really did happen, I'm gonna-"** he stopped speaking, when he noticed something colored white in the alley. It was a hooded person dressed in Southwestern-style clothing. Although the person had his back shown, the mustached man knew exactly that's who Keith wanted dead. A smile formed on his face and he murmured, **"Ah ha! There he is."** He looked at the others and told them, **"Quick, take out your throwing knives."** They all did so and hid behind a trash box. The blonde guy peeked over the edge and aimed the knife at Southwesterner. Once he had a clear shot, the goon threw the knife at the man.

Ronan heard the sound of the knife flying in the air. He pushed off the wall, catching the knife in his hand before he spun around and threw it back at the guy, killing him. The goons gasped when they saw the blonde guy get killed like a pro. The Southwestern man stepped out into the open. **"You all have five minutes to decide... who runs back to your boss,"** he informed without an explanation. The clock was running on the five minutes. Who was going to die, and who was going to run?

The gang glared at the hooded man and a fat guy said, **"Oh hell no, let's butcher this bozo!"** Then they all ran out, armed with weapons to kill. One guy took a swing at Ronan and the other guy went in for a thrust.

The assassin dodged the swing and kicked the hands of both men, making them kill each other. **"Drake!"** he shouted. Drake jumped off the roof with a loud and thunderous roar and breathed fire down on them. Then he used ice blasts to scatter them and killed some of them with his tail spikes. Ronan cut through them like butter until only one was left standing. He had his sword aimed at the last man's neck and told him, **"Run to your boss... tell him what happened here. If he wants me dead, he'll have to do it himself."**

The goon stuttered in fear, **"Y-y-yes sir!"** The assassin let the man go and the goon ran away. Drake took care of the dead bodies; piling them up and using his fire to burn them until they were ash.

* * *

After making it all the way back to Keith's secret lair, the goon reported, **"Boss, we've failed. The guy and his dragon killed all of us. He only spared me to tell you that if you want him dead, you have to do it yourself."  
**  
The boss shifted his fingers against each other and calmly said, **"Ah, I see... So the mouse want to play with the big cat, huh? Very well, I agree to his demands, but I won't be playing fair though."** His hand started cackling with magic electricity. Then the telephone rang and he picked it up. **"Hello?"** he said.

The spy on the other end of the line said, **"Boss, I've finished mapping out the A.D.R.'s place and got all their addresses. We should be able to demolish the building and kill off the activists."**

**"Perfect! Good job, Aldric! Return back to the base immediately and we'll discuss plans,"** Keith said before he hang up. He looked back to the goon and said, **"I'll take care of my special little prey later, for now the A.D.R. comes first."**

* * *

It was now break time and Minerva left the HQ to do a little shopping before she would return to work. At the square, she came across a blue dragon sleeping in the middle of the place. He must have been a very tired fellow if he decided to take a nap out on the street in the busy morning. Minerva walked up to her and rubbed her hand over his snout. **"Excuse me, sir. You really shouldn't sleep out here like that. You might catch a sunburn or get sick from the rain,"** she said to him.

The dragon woke up suddenly, shifting his fifty foot bulk around to stare directly towards the woman and said, **"The rain? It does not bother me."** He yawned, exposing the chasm of his mouth lined with white teeth; each tooth as large as a man's spread hand. **"And I do not suffer from the ailments of you thin-skinned humans,"** he continued. He sniffed the human and then his eyes widened slightly. **"You smell, different. Like, trust. Something I have not smelled in so long,"** he said seeming to relax slightly. His wings lowered just an inch or two and the spines on his back flattened. He moved slightly to allow foot traffic to pass by. The dragon sat back down, but kept his head, up and looked at the crowds of slightly nervous people.

Minerva smiled and said, **"Well, I suppose it's because you can tell that I'm a dragon rights activist, or dragon sympathizer as everyone calls us."** She let out a short hearty laugh.

Ronan and Drake came across the square. The swordsman glanced to the right, seeing the same girl that he nearly ran into and also rescued the other day. _'It seems I keep running into her everywhere in this city,'_ he thought to himself. They stayed to listen to the people and dragons talking.

* * *

After making it back to Windfall, Kathia walked through the streets, feeling the pain she took from the vine dragon's attacks. She wanted to get home faster, but she had no car as it was destroyed in the attack few days ago. Plus these vehicles were banned as of now in Windfall as there were too many dragons and people walking the streets. She knew because she just passed a sign in front of where the car dealership store used to be saying why it was closed. Great, just great... It was hard tiring her legs out walking long distances, but the dragons had to make life difficult for all humans with that law as well. The girl let out an irritated groan; it seems like this once-great city was getting more backwards everyday.

* * *

Aldric and 25 gangsters went to the A.D.R HQ and stood at the doors for a moment, staring at the target they intend to wipe off the face of Windfall. **"Alright, let's do this!"** the spy said. Then the men rushed into the building with their weapons out for the kill. The A.D.R. members saw the gangsters running up to them and became terrified. They ran and fled for safety as the mafia killed off the activists while the elite gangsters bombarded the walls, desks, rooms, and bathrooms with explosion spells to set fire and destroy. Screams filled the air as the mafia massacred the building one floor at a time.

* * *

Ronan and Drake heard explosions and went over to the A.D.R. HQ to check out what was happening. Minerva noticed the familiar duo from the side of her view. Her blue eyes followed them until she saw the building on fire. Turning her attention away from the blue dragon, she looked at the sight with shock and fear for her coworkers and friends inside. **"Oh no! What's going on? How did this happen?"** she asked. She ran over to the front of the building and waited alongside the crowd for the coworkers to get out.

Ronan went inside the building and saw the mafia attacking people in the building. **"Drake, cut them off at the upper floors,"** the swordsman shouted to his friend outside before he ran further into the building with his sword drawn. He used stealth to quickly behead the gangsters from behind one by one. He wasn't about to let them murder innocent lives. Drake flew up to the higher levels and started killing the murderers before any more activists could be harmed.

Kathia took a seat on the bench and saw the HQ in flames. Making a sneering grin in amusement, the girl thought, _'Hah, serves you right, you dragon-hugging hippies! What did you do? Welcome a dragon inside your home as a guest?'_ That was probably what they did, considering how they were for giving civil rights to these beasts. She was glad for them to make a mistake that would cost them dearly like lots of money in property damage for example. The girl would sit and watch the building burn down for a while until she would need to use her magic to put out the fires that would spread to other buildings. She wasn't about to let the Aquarians or other dragons help her fellow humans. She'd rather it be humans helping humans. So in the meantime until then, she read through the water section in her spell book to learn new magic.

Unfortunately for her, Aquarian guards in the surrounding area gathered around the burning building. They looked at each other before making silent telepathic communications. A magi warped in with a few waterhorse dragons and they started to breath out water onto the building like fire hoses. The Aquarians were unable to put out fires on their own without eating them, which was a technique usually only older dragons knew. So the guards settled for asking around the area. **"Did anyone see what happened? Are there still people inside?"** they asked, seeing people pour from the building.

One of the very few survivors, who all managed to get outside but were dying, said in a hoarse breath, **"We were attacked... by... some guys..."**

Minerva was both horrified at seeing the devastating burn wounds on the man and shocked that the activists had been attacked. **"Attacked? Who would do such a thing?"** she asked.

**"I... don't... know..."** the man said before he collapsed dead on the ground. The crowd gasped in response.

Kathia brought down her book to look at the scene._'So it turned out to be a bunch of guys. What did you do to rile them up, A.D.R.?'_ she wondered. She guessed the A.D.R. were celebrating the dragons taking their revenge on the humans or some other reason that had to lead to their crisis.

* * *

Aldric and two men with him were at the middle floor. After they impaled a secretary and a treasurer, the trio went upstairs and headed for the president's office. They blast down the door and went up to the scared man. The spy grabbed him by the shirt and said in a sadistic tone, **"Hello Mr. President."**

The president's eyes went wide with shock and betrayed as he said, **"Aldric?! You're attacking us? But why?!"**

Aldric the spy replied, **"Here's the thing, Richard Darien, I was never with this group of idiotic lizard lovers. No, I was sent here as a spy to gather up all the info about you guys, so that we can plan an attack and kill you all! That way, with you guys out of the way, no one will be brainwashed by your propaganda on dragons being people."**

The president, despite his own situation at hand, bravely argued, **"But they have feelings and sapience just like us! Why should we treat them as our property and monsters?"**

Aldric pressed his face up closer and said angrily in a gradually rising tone, **"Because one, Richard, those aren't human and two, don't you remember how many lives they took three days ago? They're even killing more now. So don't act like they aren't monsters."**

**"But they've rebuilt our city and offered us protection from the other dragons,"** Richard countered.

The spy yelled, **"And they're destroying our way of life, too! They've destroyed our guns, turned our modern city into a medieval town, and taken away our cars. We're going backwards, you coot!"**

One of the gangsters, getting tired of the conversation, suggested, **"Hey Aldric, I'm getting tired of this talk. Let's just kill the guy and get this over with."**

Aldric nodded and said, **"Right, let's kill this mofo and be done with."** As the spy raised his sword, he heard one of the goons get decapitated by Ronan and turned around to block the sword meant for him. **"So you must be that lone survivor from the desert, aren't you?"** he asked.

The assassin smirked and said mockingly, **"Figured that out yourself, did you?"** In one swift movement, his left hand left the grip of the sword handle and a hidden blade slid out from a mechanism on his wrist. He shoved his arm at the man's side and stabbed him through the ribs, earning a pained yell from Aldric. **"I am your end, but you will not die yet, only suffer,"** he said with anger. He retracted his arm as the blade slid back into the mechanism. At the same time, he spun around and sliced the man's hand off. Blood started spraying out the open veins that were once attached to the hand, causing the spy to look at it and scream in both horror and pain. Then Ronan told him, **"Call your men off. Tell them either they leave here now or they die by me and my friend whom I assume is roasting your gang alive upstairs. Your boss will fight me in the town square tomorrow at dawn or I will hunt you down and eliminate you all one by one till he stands alone... powerless."** He held his sword up aimed at the man.

* * *

The water horse dragons worked at the flames, quelling them down slowly. It seemed the fire had been going on a while. **"At this rate we'll have to flood the city,"** a guard murmured. White dragons arrived on the scene, offering healing to the injured.

There was a gust of wind and a black spitfire dragon in bluish-white armor landed in the square. His landing seemed rushed and flustered, and his face would probably show the same had it not been covered by armor. He rushed to the building and drew his head back, opening his jaws. The fire from the building billowed out into a funnel, seeping down into the spitfire's gullet until nothing was left from the flames but the remaining smoke on the building. The spitfire turned, snorting out a puff of smoke. **"Who is responsible for this?"** he barked at the nearest guard.

**"A group of humans it sounds like. But we're not sure who. The building is probably too unstable for dragons to fit through to check,"** he responded.

The spitfire ordered, **"Send in pygmies then to scout. Get some Earth dragons to keep the building stable."** A moment later a few pygmies arrived along with two Earth dragons. The armored pygmies flew inside, looking for survivors. The Earth dragons solidified the structure with magic, slowly starting to mend it. It was the main reason the Aquarians made all the buildings primarily from stone. Stone was harder to burn and easy repair for Earth dragons.

**"****Something's happening on one of the upper floors!****"** Someone among the crowd yelled while holding binoculars. **"****There's three people there and two of them are fighting!"**

Minerva went up to the young man with the binoculars, who happened to be the same guy from the park she sat next to. She asked, **"Excuse, do you mind if I borrow these for a second?"** She wanted to make sure that whoever was involved in that scene are okay and not hurt too badly.

The man handed his binoculars to her without any words other than, **"****Here."**

Minerva looked through the binoculars to see two figures fighting each other while the organization president looks on. One of them she spotted first was her hooded rescuer. **"Oh my, it's him again!"** she said to herself. He must have caught wind of the massacre going on the A.D.R. building and went stop the villain behind this. Then when she looked to his opponent, she was shocked to see Aldric. The woman blinked her eyes bewildered as she said, **"Aldric?!"** What was going on? Why were he and the other man fighting each other? Did Aldric mistake the hooded man to be one of the bad guys, was the hooded man the murderer, or was Aldric behind the attacks? The battle ended with the assassin disappearing out of there.

* * *

Angered at having been incapacitated, Aldric would have chosen to fight Ronan out of defiance, but then he saw the Aquarian guards outside through the window. It wouldn't be wise to make themselves known to the city's new and powerful police force; so the spy looked back to the assassin and growled, **"Hmph, fine. We'll spare your life for now..."** With his only hand left, he took out his walkie-talkie and said, **"Everyone, we're leaving. The Aquarians are here and we don't want any trouble with them. Let's get out of here before they see us."** As the goons left back to the secret hideout, using their smoke warp spell, Aldric told the assassin bitterly, **"Here's an advice for you, pal. Don't underestimate our boss! He can handle 20 dragons himself with just his little pinkie finger and I doubt you and your scaly friend can take him on alone."** Then the spy warped out of here, too.

Ronan sheathed his sword with a smirk and said to himself, **"He's never faced a true warrior."**

Richard watched the hooded man leave and said after him, **"Thank you, sir."** The president was very grateful for having his life saved. Ronan met with Drake outside the building. The two started to walk away from the scene as the man's hood hid his face.

Minerva gave the binoculars back and thanked the young man for letting her borrow them. Having seen the ending of the fight, she came to the conclusion that Aldric was a villain after all. She was so surprised to see that one of her own was part of the criminal group that murdered her fellow activists and bombed the HQ; she had never thought that she would see a day like this. The A.D.R. would have be more careful about who they hire into their organization next time. Then the blonde women saw the hero walking away from the scene with his dragon friend. Wanting to know everything that happened inside the building, she went over to him to them for a talk. But first she had to thank them, so she and said, **"Thanks for going to stop Aldric. I never thought one of our own would try to kill us all like that."** She wasn't the only one who appreciated what the duo did; Ronan and Drake made their way through the crowd of people who were constantly thanking them. The assassin didn't respond, but he did appreciate the gratitude. They left the area and made their way to the center courtyard of the city to wait for the gang and their boss whom he challenged to a fight.

Keith watched from afar, peeking from the side of a building and observing his prey to memorize their looks and everything. **"You fought very well, my friends. But let's see how you'll do later tonight,"** he murmured.

Beside him, his goon asked, **"You mean you aren't going to fight him tomorrow?"**

The boss replied,**"Of course not. I like to play smart and kill my enemies when they're at their most vulnerable. We'll do this after midnight. Come, we'll return to base and discuss our strategy."**

**"Y-yes boss," **the goon said before he followed the big man in charge back through the alleys.

* * *

**Author's Note: **You know, I thought it was pointless having a mafia go after an organization that's not too big of a threat to the human supremacy. Yes, I said that the A.D.R. isn't a threat, because they're always losing in the fight to legalize equal rights for dragons against the whole world that strongly supports slavery and hunting of these magnificent creatures. But my friend, LordTorch18, wanted to develop the relationship between our characters Minerva and Ronan. So he thought it would be a good idea if I got Minerva involved with the story around Ronan and the mafia, which is why I had the bad guys attack the A.D.R. Headquarters.

Keith, Aldric, and Richard (c) me  
Crowe (c) Sai (a.k.a. Eveeoni on DeviantArt)  
Sovereign (c) SUP3RSPAWN3R


	15. Humans are Dangerous

**Chapter 14: Humans are Dangerous**

The Vulture horde were now miles away from the dragon village. Soon, they found a human refugee camp that was in process of building a wall of lumber and a few lookout towers to make the place look like a fortress. The horde kept their distance and hid behind the thick group of trees. Aeolus sneered and said, **"Hmph, how amusing. The humans are building some defenses to protect themselves. Unfortunately, it won't be enough to protect themselves from our powers.**" Then he looked to the leaf pygmy and ordered him, **"Leafwing, go spy on the human's interior before I destroy their place."**

**"Yes sir," **Leafwing obliged. Aeolus held the crystal containing Eitri's powers and used it to make the pygmy invisible. Then the spy went inside the camp to check out the place's strengths and defenses. The leaf pygmy observed the place as he snuck by people unnoticed, observed on their conversations, and went inside tents to see what they had. Most of the tents had sleeping bags, pillows, clothes, and some other items. Some tents and trucks had food and boxes. One of the boxes inside one of the trucks contained knives and daggers. _'Human weapons,'_ he thought. Luckily, these ones were too short to reach flying dragons. So fighting humans armed with these wouldn't be any trouble at all. After he left the truck, Leafwing discovered a training ground where men were shooting arrows at the targets both on ground and high in the air. It was apparent that they were training to fight off any attacking dragons as well as hunt them around in the woods.

The pygmy left the training ground and went to explore some more, when his ears caught word of the conversation between three people. One of the two men, who had a sorrowful look on his face, sighed and said, **"I really hope we're doing is enough to prevent these scalies from causing another tragedy again. I mean they created a tornado and attacked everyone inside it and on ground. I'm not sure if we're going to escape the same destruction that took my family."** Leafwing stiffened in surprise; this man was a survivor of the other human camp and the dragons of his village had failed to get him. No wonder why this camp was putting effort into building defenses; the man had told the other humans everything he had witnessed so that they can prepare themselves. The pygmy quickly snuck past the humans and looked more around the camp.

Once Leafwing was done, he came out of the place to report his findings to the leader. Aeolus replied, **"Alright then, let's get this over with."** The disaster dragon created a tornado and sent it into the camp. The tornado tore up the walls and towers and took up every object and human being into its vortex. Lutarn used his weather powers to create thunderclouds to zap the people inside while Corona, Bam, and Hewey went to attack any survivors on ground that have fled away from the tornado.

* * *

When Kathia made a movement to get off of the bench, she felt the wounds stinging her. She hissed and remained in her seat to keep herself from hurting further._ 'Damn vine dragon! I had known that place in the forest was its nest, I would have been more prepared,'_ she thought. As she wished she had healing magic, she remembered what the blessed water spell said about white magic._ 'Hmm... I wonder if I used white magic the same way I did with fire magic,'_ she thought. So she channeled some white magic energy to her hand and hovered it over her wounds as the hand glowed in a light green aura. They all healed, but now the girl was left exhausted and tired. She let out a quiet sigh and said, **"I better stop using magic and let myself rest for a while." **In the meantime, she would read more of the spell book to see what other interesting spells were inside and which ones to practice first.

After resting on the bench for half an hour, Kathia's tired numbness went away and she was ready to move. The girl resumed her walk and did her best to stay 12 feet away from dragons. She came across a new shop in town selling horses to those who refuse to ride dragons. Kathia decided to go purchase a steed for herself, so that she could get to places faster. She used her father's credit card and bought a white stallion. She got on her new pet horse and rode it back to her mansion.

* * *

Another refugee camp was destroyed, and with it, the human survivors. The horde members regrouped with Aeolus and they looked at the ruins they had created. Two human camps down, many more to go; the Vulture horde had a lot of work ahead of them. The dragons left and camp and continued on their quest for the extinction of mankind.

* * *

The Firestars stopped for another rest; this time landing on a huge clearing between the trees and mountain. But this didn't seem to be some ordinary space on the ground. Before she had touched the grass, Atlas sensed some magical energy coming from underneath the ground. She was curious as to wonder what dragon or thing was radiating the energy from land.

Danielle and Kylie slid down their aunt's tail and stretched their legs to weed out the stiffness. Unlike their aunt, they were unaware of the magic energy in the earth. The magi dragoness channeled her energy to both her feet and her eyes to give herself an x-ray-like vision to see what was under the land she was touching. There was a giant castle underneath there. _'Why the hell is there a building underground? Who put it there?'_ Atlas wondered out of perplexity. It was pretty normal for buildings to be on top of land, but this castle was weird. Atlas wanted to get to the bottom of this, so she used her earth magic to separate the soil away from the castle.

The hatchlings saw what was happening to the land. **"Aunt Atwas, what are yew doing?"** asked Kylie.

**"I'm trying to uncover a building that's beneath the ground,"** answered the magi. **"You better move out of the way before you two fall into the hole,"** she told them. The sisters obeyed as they ran way from the gradually opening hole and went to the edge of the trees. After a little while later, the giant castle was revealed. From its size, it seemed way to too big to be that of a human's castle; even the double doors were dragon-sized. "**That's pretty impressive for a human's home,"** said Atlas in admiration.

**"Aunt Atwas, what's dat?"** asked Danielle, who with her sister are looking at what their aunt was seeing.

"**Is dat a house?"** asked Kylie, thinking it might be the same thing as Henry and Yukki's home.

The dragoness answered, **"No, it's a castle. But I've never seen one this big before."** Now she had a desire to see what was inside the old building, but first... She flew over to her nieces and said, **"We're going inside, kids. I want to check the place out."** She took up the hatchlings and flew down to the castle doors. The sisters looked up above the doors to see an image of a flame inside a circle. Atlas opened one of the doors and went inside. The Firestars looked at the dusty lobby of the castle and saw stairs, hallways, and two cracked statues of dragons, one of which had a head and a wing broken off. Atlas decided to search the ground floor first, so they took the hallway to the left. The stony walls were chalked with a few tiny holes on its surface. The spaces in the walls that used to hold the objects were either empty or its object has been damaged.

After going through the hallways and two rooms, the Firestars came to an interesting place. Inside the room was armor and weapons for dragons. The armors consisted of wings, helmet, chest plate, greaves, fauld, and tail plate. The gauntlets were clawed to reinforce the dragon warrior's claws for added damage, the tail armors had maces or blades attached to the tip, and some of the helmets had horns for the hornless dragons to be able to ram into their foes. **"Wow... no way!"** Atlas said, looking impressed at the old weaponry. The place was an armory and the family had stumbled onto its treasure.

The hatchlings looked at the place in wonder and Danielle asked, **"Aunt Atwas, what are dose?"**

**"Armor and weapons, Danielle,"** the magi answered. **"Tools, I'm going to need in case we run into any dangerous humans."** The dragoness took the best armory pieces for herself and equipped them on.

Kylie poked at one of the armors and said, **"Dey kinda look like dwagons."**

"That's because they were made for dragons,"

explained Atlas. **"To protect themselves in wars and battles."**

"Are dere any for us?"

asked the whiptail hatchling, looking around for armor her size.

Atlas looked around before answered, **"Nope, there aren't any. The castle's soldiers would never let hatchlings fight in battles. It's too dangerous for them; they could get hurt out there."**

The Firestars left the armory and went to other places like the throne room, the dining room, the the training room, the courtyard, and the dungeons. Then the went upstairs and to see what the above was like. The first thing they came to was a library. The hatchlings started to get bored and Danielle spoke, **"Aunt Atwas, isn't dere anything intewesting to do?"**

"I don't know, Danielle. Why don't you go read a book or something?"

suggested Atlas as she picked out of the books. She opened it and began reading the dragons' history on wars.

Kylie asked curiously, **"What's a book?"**

Danielle, felt the books were foreign to her, asked, **"And how do yew wead?"**

Atlas closed the book with her paw between the pages so that she doesn't lose track of where she was at. She looked to her nieces, thinking that now would be a good time to teach them the ancient dragon language. **"Looks like, I'll have to teach you girls the ABCs,"** she said. The dragoness patted her tail on the space beside her and beckoned, **"Come over here, we're going to learn how to read a book. No matter how many days it takes."** The hatchlings bounded over to their aunt and sat on each side of her. Atlas began to point out the letters in the book as to which alphabet was which and how to pronounce them.

* * *

A few hours later, The Vulture horde was now in a desolated part of the forest. The trees looked as if they had been destroyed by a wild fire. They were leafless with their trunks and branches blackened with burns. The horde looked around, intrigued and wondering what had transpired here, when they smelled the fresh blood in the air. Bam felt as if something really bad was going as he asked nervously, **"Uh Aeolus? Is that?"** He was hoping that his assumption was wrong.

**"Dragon Blood, yes. It looks like a massacre is going on. Let's go!"** said Aeolus, wanting to help his fellow dragons. The horde ran through the woods and came across a scene of bloodied dead dragon bodies with slash wounds and arrows sticking out of them, along with charred and eaten human ones as well. Apparently, a battle had happened here and was responsible for the tree's disastrous fate.

The horde looked to see a lone and dying light yellow-maned white dragon standing on top of a hill. He fought to keep his feet standing as he looked back at them and muttered out weakly, **"Run..."** Then at the next instance, he was zapped by a lightning bolt. The white dragon dropped dead after his fatal shock. The horde reacted in shock as they saw they gasped and flinched.

Their moment was pretty soon broken by the shout of a man, **"Look, there's more dragons! Kill them!"** The dragons looked to see an army of about a thousand people shooting their arrows at them. The horde got struck by the arrows and roared out in pain. Bam retaliated by blowing out a big fireball at them to burn a small number of soldiers. Aeolus zapped lightning out, killing only 15 people. The healer dragon cast a barrier spell around the dragons to shield them from any more arrows and spells. But of course the barrier wouldn't be able to hold out against these attacks for too long as too many would destroy it, with magic spells adding further damage.

The healer dragon looked to leader for great ideas and asked desperately, **"Aeolus, what do we do? We're never going to survive against this many humans with all of them attacking like that."**

The disaster dragon partially agreed with Hewey's perception on the situation, but he had a trick that would definitely turn the tables around quickly. **"You're forgetting that I can summon earthquakes and tornadoes,"** he told Hewey. With that, he cast a tornado down on the humans, sucking the men in the middle into the vortex. But then the tactic was ruined when some magical force quickly dispelled the tornado. Aeolus gritted his teeth and thought, _'They have magic users among them.'_ This was bad, because magic-using humans could make the horde's life more difficult and give the army an advantage. The dragon looked back at Hewey and said, **"Right, we retreat for now."** He took the Eitri's stone and used it to warp the horde out of the battlefield.

* * *

The Vulture Horde was now lying in the woods' clearing, taking the arrows off of their bodies and getting healed by Hewey. Bam hissed in pain from the sting of the open wounds before saying, **"Darn humans! I didn't think we'd be running into a big army like that so soon."**

As Hewey was using his magic on her, Corona said frowning, "**I'm pretty sure we would have ran into an army anytime, Bam. I mean we are traveling around Solomos."**

**"Yeah but, I..."** Bam tried to voice his surprise of the very early encounter of the army, but couldn't find the right words without sounding dumb. He gave up and continued with a hint of sigh, **"Never mind."**

Aeolus, one of the dragons healed, thought up a plan to destroy the human army. After finding his solution, he looked at the dragons said, **"Since we found an obstacle on our mission, we're going to need a way to destroy it."**

The horde looked back at him as Leafwing asked doubtfully, **"How? Their numbers are big and they got magic-using ones. I mean did you see the way they got rid of your tornado? I bet they could also stop your earthquakes, too."**

"Which is why we're going to bolster our numbers,"

the horde leader said, standing up determinedly. He told them his plan in mind, **"We're going to look for other dragons and get them to join our horde. Once we have enough, we will stamp out the humans."**

The leaf pygmy's mood brightened up with confidence and said, **"Hey, that could work."**

**"Of course it will,"** Aeolus said. **"And it will work more if we fight them at night with Eitri and Zylanon on our side."** A magic using dragon and another who sinks into the shadows to strike prey will make things even easier.

Bam smiled at his cousin and said, **"I like the way you think, cous!"**

**"Thank you, Bam,"** the disaster said, appreciating the praise. After everyone was healed, Aeolus said to the dragons, **"Vulture horde, let's move out!"** They traveled through the woods, while being on the watch for their enemies, so that they won't run into them.

* * *

Two hours after teaching her nieces how to read the letters and pronounced them, Atlas started to teach them how to read. **"Alright, let's start from the first word right there,"** she said, pointing to the beginning of the first paragraph. The hatchlings looked at the word before their aunt asked, **"Tell me what it says."**

Kylie and Danielle processed the word in the mind and thought about how to say it, before the whiptail hatchling answered simply, **"In."**

Atlas nodded and said, **"Very good! Now what does the next word say?"** Her finger slid to the second word.

**"Te-he,"** said Kylie, trying to pronounce "the".

Her aunt corrected her, **"It's actually 'the', but good try anything."** Moving to the next word, she asked, **"Now what does this say?"**

"Teh-hird?"

answered Danielle, wondering if she got the answer right.

**"Third,"** the magi dragoness corrected. **"Just remember that th word is pronounced like d, but with emphasis on the t."**Then she gave them an example of the pronunciation as she said, **"Like THIS!"**

**"Ohhh,"** both sisters said, getting what the magi said. So the family continued to read the book about the Fire castle's origin and its king. Long ago, after the dragons migrated to the new world, the four kings built separate their own castles: the castle of water, the castle of earth, the castle of fire, and the castle of air. The castle of fire belonged to a really strong king who led an army of dragon warriors. The warriors would train and battle everyday to become the strongest. Tournaments were held at the castle's arena to see who was the best.

Sometime later throughout the few centuries later, the air king left his castle and took the tower away with him away from his home to be with his human lover. The castle of air lost its protection because of that. The fire king saw this as an advantage to further expand his reign and sent his army to take over the wind castle. But one of the air inhabitants gained power as its new king and used his guards to defend the castle. The fight went in favor of the fire army as their brute tactics, skills, and wits gave them the advantage and the air army was defeated. The fire king declared the castle of air as part of his kingdom and thus gained the other areas the castle of air once had as territory.

Much later in time, the humans stormed the castle with their advance weapons that bested those of the dragons. The fire army lost the battle with most of its soldiers dead, the inhabitants becoming enslaved, the castles' treasure was looted, and the fire king slain. The king's adviser used the last of his strength to seal the castle underground so that the humans wouldn't defile it again. Thus, the days of the castle of fire had come to an end.

**"Huh, so that's the story,"** said Atlas, now knowing how the fire castle came to be. **"I tell you, this castle has some pretty interesting history,"** she said, admiring the warrior culture. Perhaps, now that the fire king was no longer alive, Atlas would take the castle as its new queen. _'Yeah, Queen Atlas! I like the sound of that,' _she thought feeling pride and joy of being the new owner. The sisters had noticed something pretty weird about the air king's love life. They knew it was normal for dragons to fall in love with other dragons, but what the air king did was a bit comical.

* * *

A few hours later into evening, Kathia went out again to do some shopping this time. She purchased the camo wear, baits, helmet, traps, and dragon call device from the hunting store. She rode the horse through the streets until she came across a familiar person who was just going to the Golden Pony inn. Kathia decided to catch his attention with a greeting and said with a smile and wave, **"Hi Jason!"**

Jason whirled around to see the girl and her horse. He smiled back and waved to Kathia before walking out to her. **"Well well, what have we here? I don't see you all day, and poof, you get yourself a horse. Who knows what else you'll do when I'm not looking,"** he said, teasing her a bit as she giggled. **"So how have you been Kathia? Been practicing that magic?"** he asked, still grinning.

The girl answered gleefully, "**Yep, and I've been teaching myself new spells. And I just bought me a new book."** She showed her new spell book to him and said, **"This one teaches you about elemental spells. I learned how to use the bubble shield and the burning touch spells. I used my fire spell when I was defending myself against a vine dragon."** Then she opened her bag and showed Jason her prize. **"And look, I killed a purple dragon and cut off its antennas,"** she said proudly.

Jason looked impressed as he stared at the antennas, **"Very well done with those dragons. Glad to hear you're making progress. I'm not getting quite as far, normal arrows only work on their soft spots so I need to improve my aim even more."**

**"Well what I did back there was aim for the head,"** said Kathia, giving a tip. **"That's probably like the softest spots of all dragons."**

Jason chuckled. **"Head shots only count if you hit them. I doubt the beasts will stand still long enough for me to get a clean shot,"** the man pointed out tauntingly. **"And you need a clean shot if you hope to puncture those tough scales,"** he added smirking a little.

The girl advised a simple solution, **"Well then you gotta be quick before it moves."**

**"Yeah, I suppose,"** the man said. Then he gestured towards the inn behind him and asked, **"I was about to make something to eat. Care to join me?"**

The girl's mouth started to water in excitement over being treated to a meal. **"Of course! I would love to,"** she said. Then she went with him into the inn.

**"I'm glad you'll come but don't get your hopes too high. I doubt my cooking is on par with what you're used to eating,"** Jason warned as he led Kathia through the street and into the inn.

The girl wasn't about to believe this until she tried his dish. **"Well I'm sure your food can't be that bad. I mean what does it taste like?"** she asked as they entered the dining room.

**"Well..."** Jason started as he motioned for her to take a seat. **"People say I must have blown out my taste buds years ago."**

Kathia sat at the table and spoke with confidence for him, **"Well I'll be the judge of that after I get a taste."**

The man disappeared into the kitchen with a slight chuckle. The sounds, and soon the savory smells of cooking, were soon to follow. **"If there is anything you need just give me a holler, OK?"** his disembodied voice called from the kitchen.

Kathia asked, **"Alright! Well could you give me a drink, too?"** It was a good idea to always have a drink along with a meal, so that she could wash the food down.

**"Sure thing!"** came Jason's reply.

* * *

The Vulture Horde came across a cave with two dragon guards. The guards saw them and asked, **"Who goes there?"**

Aeolus stepped forward and answered, **"I am Aeolus and this is my horde."**

The guards looked to the other dragons before turning their eyes back to the disaster dragon. **"Aeolus? Well fancy meeting you here! I'd never thought I'd see someone like you,"** one of them said excitedly. **"So did you come here to hide from the humans?"** he asked.

**"Something like that,"** said Aeolus. **"But I'm actually doing is looking to recruit some strong dragons to wipe out that army."** Then he asked, **"Tell me, are there any powerful breeds in that cave?"**

**"Well we don't know everyone's exact ability, but if you want to find them. You'll have to come into the cave yourself to see,"** said the other guard. The guards let the horde through and they went inside the cave. Upon entering, the horde saw a crowd of dragons with their hatchlings and eggs, all huddled up in barely closed spaces. Aeolus's eyes looked to each dragons to see which ones looked like capable fighters and which ones don't. To his disappointment, it seemed like a majority of them were weak breeds, something the disaster dragon didn't want in his army. Soon, the horde made it to the very end of the cave where they met a lone red dragon.

Aeolus looked down at him and asked, **"Excuse me, do you know where I can find the leader of this horde?"**

The red dragon lifted his head up and replied, **"You're talking to me. What? Do you need me for something?"**

The disaster dragon felt a bit glad about this perfect coincidence, as it made things easier than going around the cave to search for him. **"As a matter of fact, I do! You see, we came here to this cave in hopes of finding dragons with special abilities that we need to taking down a human army,"** he told him.

The red dragon's eyes widened with fear before he asked, **"A human army? You mean one that slaughtered our fighting dragons?"**

Aeolus couldn't help but wonder if the army the red dragon seemed to be afraid is the same one that he encountered earlier. He decided to test his theory by asking, **"If you're talking about "them", then maybe you might be familiar with a white dragon who has a yellow mane?"**

The cave leader looked surprised for a second before he softened into sadness. He looked away and murmured, **"That was my friend, Dedries. We were both slaves who worked together at the farm. Dedries was always the braver of the two of us; he was the one who led half the horde into attacking the army."**

**"So you do know that dragon,"** said the Vulture Horde leader. **"He died in front of us when we were traveling. His comrades were already killed by the time we got there."** Then he closed his eyes in pity and respect for the deceased dragon. **"I'm sorry for your loss,"** he murmured.

Corona and the other horde members bowed with their eyes closed as she said, **"And so is the rest of the horde."**

The cave leader smiled a little bit and said, **"Thank you. You have no idea how heart-breaking it is to lose your best friend."** He wiped a tear out of his green eye.

Remembering his family, Aeolus sympathized with him as he said, **"Actually I do and some, if not all, of us have gone through something like this, too. The world's a tragic place when humans are in charge."** After the cave leader nodded in agreement, the disaster dragon continued in a determined tone, **"Which is why we're going to destroy that army and avenge all those who died."**

The cave leader looked at him as if he was crazy and asked, **"Are you nuts?! There's only six of you and the army destroyed twenty-five of us. What can a small group of you guys do to stop them, when Dedries's horde couldn't?"**

The disaster dragon answered, **"It's simple; we're going to recruit a bigger number of dragons, all of whom have powerful abilities or specific traits useful for battle."** He planned to have the number doubled compared to Dedries's horde, so that he can have a higher chance of destroying the army. **"Also, some things we need to know about the humans' army would be very essential to us,"** Aeolus said.

**"Well if you must know, then I'll tell you,"** the cave leader said. He took a few steps around the disaster dragon and informed him, **"After the dragons started destroying human camps, which was right after you spread the word on how to kill him, three of these camps joined forces and combined their dragon slayers to exterminate us in revenge."** Aeolus scowled and held back a growl; what makes these humans' vengeance justified when they were the ones who harmed dragons first? The cave leader continued speaking, **"They would slaughter every dragon, hatchling, and egg they could find. We thought Dedries's horde could stop them, but the humans' magic was too powerful. They were overwhelmed and that's how they were all killed." **He hung his head low in despair as he finished off his words,** "I know, because Dedries told me his last words of the situation through telepathy."**

**"What kind of magic did they use?"** inquired Aeolus, wanting to know about the magic-using human's abilities, so that he could find ways to thwart them.

The cave leader answered, **"Well from what I heard, they could create barriers to block out fireballs and cast a wide-ranged spell that would destroy those caught in it."**

Aeolus added in, **"They've also canceled out my earthquake power."**

**"Well gee, that just makes the army sound even more dangerous,"** the worried cave leader said.

**"That's true,"** the disaster dragon agreed. **"But no matter how powerful they are, they will be destroyed in the end. And when that happens, I guarantee that you'll never live in fear from them again."** The Vulture horde leader was pretty confident in his goal. No matter how many losses it may take, he will do everything he can to achieve victory. Bam grinned and nodded along with his cousin's words.

The cave leader looked at the disaster dragon with a quizzical expression and asked,**"You sound determined, mister. Who are you?"**

**"I am, Aeolus, and these dragons with me are the Vulture horde, which I personally lead,"** the horde leader answered. If the cave leader had to ask him for his name, then the guards either forgot to tell him through telepathy or they weren't smart.

The cave leader's expression brightened up in surprise and delight. **"Aeolus? You're THE Aeolus?!"** he asked.

**"Yes, I am,"** the horde leader answered.

A smile formed on the cave leader's face before he continued, **"It's an honor to meet you! You know, Aeolus, you're like a hero to us all. First you shared with us the Spell to break ourselves free and now you're going to destroy the army. I wonder what else you'll do next."** He let out a short hearty laugh.

Bam quickly spoke up like a child interrupting an adult and said, **"Well sir, if you really want to know; my cousin also wants to kill all the humans around the world, so that we don't have no more problems from them."**

**"Really now?"** asked the cave leader in admiration. **"Sounds like you're doing some good work there. I like that."**

Aeolus smiled at the praise and said, **"Why thank you for your comment, sir. I enjoy doing work that benefits dragonkind."**

**"I'm sure you do,"** the cave leader said and nodded. **"Anyway, if you're going to recruit dragons into your horde, then I would recommend asking Orion if he wants to help. He's a magma dragon; he can withstand any kind of heat and he can breathe out lots of lava."** Before Aeolus could ask why this Orion dragon didn't go with Dedries's group, the cave leader said why, **"He's one of the guards on break, but I think we could do with one less guard, I mean we got six of them. 5 won't be too bad."**

The disaster dragon thought that a magma dragon would sound useful, in case the humans used fire magic. He said, **"Very well then, we'll go meet him."**

**"Alright, I'll him know you're on your way to him,"** the cave leader said, hinting he was going to use telepathy.

**"Thanks,"** Aeolus said. Before he would leave, he had one important tip he needed the cave leader to know, **"Also in the future, tell your guards to let you know who's coming into the cave, alright?"**

**"Sure thing, Aeolus,"** the cave leader replied. Shortly after the Vulture horde left, he facepalmed at his own incompetency and blamed himself quietly, **"I can't believe I forgot to tell my guards that."**

* * *

After waiting some minutes later, Kathia started to hear a commotion nearby. **"What the heck?"** she asked, getting out of her seat to check out the scene that piqued her curiosity. She went over to edge of the dining room bordering the main lobby and found some policemen investigating the dead receptionist. She heard the police saying that the man had been impaled by a spiky-haired blonde killer, whose name hasn't been identified yet. This made Kathia froze in cold fear as she thought, _'Oh gods, we have a murderer!'_ Chances were that he or she was still somewhere in this inn, probably killing the next unfortunate victim.

She snapped out of her thoughts when she heard Jason calling from the kitchen. **"Hey! What's going on out there?"** he asked.

The girl turned her head to face the kitchen door and answered, **"There's been a murder here in the hotel. Somebody killed the receptionist and no one knows why." **By then, people and a news crew were coming in to check out the scene.

Jason left the kitchen to catch up with Kathia and see what was going on. **"What's everyone crowding around for?"** he asked again quietly when he stood next to her. There was a lot of worried whispering going around. The word murder was being cautiously uttered here and there as if it were a slimy unpleasant thing.

Kathia answered, **"They're obviously taken an interest to the crime scene. I mean look at them. They're all want to know who did this, so that want to stay away killer."** She could see the bystanders gossiping among themselves, all asking questions and speaking their concerns.

**"Tsk! Just what we need; a madman on the loose. Like we humans don't have enough problems on our plate,"** the black man muttered in a frustrated tone.

Kathia crossed her arms and nodded in agreement as she said in annoyance, **"I know, right?" **The smell of burning meat drifted through the air and Jason cursed as he ran back to the kitchen. As she watched him run back to the kitchen, the girl took one last look at the crime scene before she went back to the table.

She heard Jason curse out some funny words before he said, **"Someday I'm going to make a human only colony. We'd crack down on murderers without mercy and kill any dragons daring to enter it. It would be a safe haven for everyone."**

Kathia smiled at the idea and thought, _'Sounds like my kind of place.'_ Maybe when Jason makes his dream colony, she can go and invite all the anti-dragon people in Windfall and the new city being built and move them into the perfect place for home.

After a short while, the hunter returned to table baring two dishes with barely saved squirrel meat and tasty looking steamed vegetables, and two glasses of water. **"Er... well I'm not normally this bad with cooking. I hope it's alright,"** he said placing the plate between some cutleries in front of the girl and the glass before setting the others down in front of himself.

Kathia decided to give the squirrel a try first. She cut a piece of it and blew at the hot steaming meat to cool it down a bit before she put it into her mouth to chew. The taste was bland and it was probably because it was over-cooked. The bitter black burned spots certainly did not help the food. _'Wow he wasn't kidding when he said that I wouldn't be used to something like this,' _she thought in disappointment. But nevertheless, she had to force herself to eat the rest, so that she didn't offend him. After the squirrel was finished, the girl went to eat the vegetables next. At first she expected them to taste bad, too. But surprisingly, they were good; probably not gourmet good, but still delicious anyway. The girl happily ate the veggies until they were good. **"Mmm, that was tasty!"** Kathia said, wiping the corners of her lips with the napkin.

**"I'm glad you liked it. Can't say I was overly fond of the squirrel, but I think I got those vegetables down pat,"** he said merrily giving his mouth a wipe with the napkin.

The redhead replied honestly with delight, **"You sure did!"**

**"It's pretty late, I better get you back to your place for the night,"** he said standing and collecting the dishes. **"But we should meet tomorrow afternoon and show off our skills."**

The girl replied in enthusiasm, **"Yes, that would be fun! I'd like to see what you can do. And I'm going to show what I learned."** She couldn't wait to show him her magic spells that she learned from her two spell books.

* * *

After an evening hunt, Atlas brought back some food for the family and they all ate their dinner. Once their meals were eaten, the sisters went to play around with each other, while Atlas read some more books on the castle's history and culture. The forging book she picked up taught her how to make weapons and armor for warriors, how to mend them, and how to remove rust. This seemed to be quite useful as all the armor and weapons, including Atlas's, were rusted. So to renew them, she used the magic taught from the book to make her equipment brand new again. On the thought of forging, she thought it would be a good idea to make armor for Danielle and Kylie to protect themselves, in case she was ever gone. But of course she would have to find some ore tomorrow as it was late at night. The family went to the tower where the king used to rest and slept there.

* * *

**Author's Note:**I'm putting Atlas's part back into this chapter, because I realized it took only a day for her to get there and it also took only a day for two new characters (who are yet to be seen; not mine) to get there as well.

Dedries and Orion (c) me  
Cloud (c) I don't know who I should credit this RP version of Cloud Strife to; Square Enix or the draco8967, who played as him. Sure both versions of Cloud look alike, but their back-stories are quite different from one another.


	16. Two Failed Assaults in One Night

**Chapter 15: Two Failed Assaults in One Night**

After convincing Orion into joining the horde, the horde left the cave as the guards and the inhabitants called out after the magma dragon, wishing him good luck in the war against the humans and telling him to kill as many as possible for them. Orion smiled at his fellow cavemates and told, **"Thanks guys! I will!"** The horde walked on and left the cave behind in the distance to go look for other dragons to recruit. Aeolus knew that meeting them in person was one way to boost the morale, but telepathy was also another way to invite dragons to over to his side. The first dragoness he thought of in mind was his old friends, Atlas and Flarina. The former of the sisters was a magi dragon, whose breed can use teleportation magic. After Atlas agrees to join the horde, she could warp herself, her sister, and their friends over to Solomos. And with her at their side, Aeolus could get her to teleport the horde to their other friends in Solomos and use them to connect with their friends and their friends and so on until his horde is big enough to destroy the army.

The disaster dragon made a telepathical link with the magi and said, _'Greetings Atlas, it is I, Aeolus.'_

* * *

As the Firestar family was sleeping, Atlas heard a familiar voice in her mind. Her closed eyes squeezed tight as she replied, _'Dang Aeolus, you had to talk to me while I was trying to catch some z's? You better be glad, this was only the early part of my rest. So what's up?'_

The disaster said, _'Well Atlas, sorry to disturb your sleep, Atlas. But I'm letter you know that I'm running a horde of my own and our goal is to kill all the humans in Solomos.'_

_'Really now? That's nice,'_ said Atlas, feeling impressed to hear that he was the leader of his own group. _'So how big is this horde of yours?'_ she asked.

_'Not much, we only have nine dragons,'_ the disaster told her. _'We need a lot more than that to destroy a large army of humans that are killing dragons everywhere.'_

The magi got mad at the news and barred her teeth at her contempt for humanity's wickedness. _'Those humans, never give up, do they?'_ she said.

Aeolus replied scornfully, _'Of course not; their malice and greed are all instinctive and that's never going to change.'_ Then he spoke in a calm tone, _'Anyway Atlas, I went talk to you to see if you would be interested in joining the Vulture horde. A magical dragon would be useful for our cause, especially when our enemies are capable of using magic.'_

Atlas tensed, feeling unnerved by the invitation into the kill crew. _'You want me to join your horde?'_ she asked.

_'Yes, did my words not imply that?'_ asked the disaster dragon.

_'They did, but I'm kind of busy with my life at the moment,'_ the magi told him, giving him an excuse not to join. Usually Atlas would be happy to help a friend out with any problems they had, but this case was different. If the Vulture horde planned to destroy all the humans in Solomos, then that would mean the deaths of genuinely good humans as well. Part of Atlas's personal code of honor was to avoid/prevent the deaths of the innocent and she wasn't one to go against her honor. _'I have two nieces that I need to take care by myself. Their parents, Flarina and her mate, died not too long ago,'_ she told him. Hopefully that reason alone should dissuade her friend from getting into his horde.

* * *

When Aeolus heard about Flarina's death, he couldn't help but feel sad for the red whiptail's death and sorry for Atlas and her nieces. _'That's very tragic to hear,'_ he replied. _'How did she die?'_ he asked.

He heard the magi growling, _'Hybrids! They killed their own mother and John, her mate. They would have killed my nieces too, had I not butchered them first.'_

The horde leader made a frowning scornful face at the mention of hybrids. These artificial half-human scums were an abomination to dragonkind and nature itself as he saw them as rape babies made to destroy their own parents. Needless to say, they were more dangerous than halflings. Aeolus would be sure to annihilate each and every one of them when his horde gets to Northeast Rudvich some day. _'Nice to hear that they got a taste of your revenge; they definitely needed that,'_ he said.

Atlas yelled angrily, _'Damn right, they did! Those heartless mutants got what they deserved.'_

_'Indeed!' _the disaster dragon said, feeling just as mad as she was. _'May they rot in hell and your sister rest in peace.' _Then he spoke in a more softer tone,_'Flarina was a sweet and caring dragoness. I will miss her for all of my eternal life. My hearts and prayers will go out to you, Atlas.'_ Aeolus and the original Firestar sisters were once slaves who lived together under one of his previous slave masters. Flarina always sought to help out her fellow slaves during work time and would bring cheer and comfort to them after the end of their tiring days. The disaster dragon and the other slaves had grown fond of the whiptail who had been like a sister to them. Much to say; they were quite sad and disappointed when the Firestar sisters had to be sold to their new owner who eventually took them to Rudvich.

_'Thanks Aeolus, that means so much to me,'_ the magi said gratefully. _'I hope her soul can rest, knowing that her daughters are in safe paws.'_

_'So do I,'_ said Aeolus, closing his red eyes in respect for the dead. Then he opened them back up and remembered why he had talked to Atlas in the first. So he went back to the topic on hand and said, _'Anyway, let's put the sad matter aside for now, because I need recruits. If you can't join my horde, then maybe some of your friends would like go in your place instead. If they haven't joined the other hordes.'_

Atlas replied, _'My friends, huh? Well let me ask them and see if they want to get in on this business of yours.'_

_'Yes, please do that and let me know if any of them want in,'_ the disaster dragon said. Then he gave her a quick note before she could start inviting, _'But please do limit your friends by their powers and abilities. This horde does not need plain, normal weaklings who will only get in the way.'_

_'That I will, pal,'_ the magi promised before they disconnected their telepathy. Aeolus was glad to have friends like Atlas who are happy to help out. It made his life easier. The dusk sky eventually dimmed down to complete night. Pretty soon, Zylanon and Eitri would come to the Vulture horde. The leader would have to tell them everything that has happened and about the newest member in the group as well.

* * *

It was now 10:00 pm at night time, but there were still some people in the streets about. Keith wanted to attack Ronan when no one was around to report the commotion to the Aquarians, and that would have to be at the time when most of the city's population was asleep. The boss thought about the assassin particularly and thought, _'Hmph, that man; I should have made sure that there was not a survivor alive back then. But it's never too late to bring the last of his clan to extinction. With them out of the way, I can focus back onto decimating A.D.R. and the Aquarians.'_ Keith sent his spy to watch the enemies from the distance to keep an eye on them and let him know if anything in particular happened. In the meantime, the boss would wait at his hideout.

* * *

Aldric made his way over to the town square as ordered by Keith. He wore a dark brown cloak and a black mask to hide his identity from everyone, including his targets. The spy went over to the alleyway and hid there as he watched the Southwestern man and copper dragon from the corner. They were sitting by the fountain, looking as if they were waiting for something. The spy saw the dragon growling and tapping two of his fingers on the ground. The foreigner subtly drew one of his knives and threw it in the direction of the spy. Aldric moved his head to the side and barely avoided the knife as it flew bye and hit the stone wall of the building. **"If you want this to end, then let us end it here and now,"** the assassin shouted out so the spy could hear him. **"You want me dead? I'm right here."**

The spy remained hidden in the alley and thought bitterly, _'Impatient, are you? You son of a bitch. Don't worry, your death will come eventually.'_

* * *

Time went by until it was a quarter after midnight. Keith equipped himself with the best weapons and tools; it was now time to end the pesky duo once and for all. He took up his cell phone and called his spy, **"Aldric, are you still there?"**

The spy at the other end of the line replied, _"I am, is it time?"_

**"Yes Aldric,"** the boss confirmed as he got out of his office. **"I'm coming over to the square now. Stay where you and make sure these rats don't move."**

_"Yes sir. But do be careful, I think he knows you're coming,"_ the spy warned.

**"Well then, let's give him a warm welcome,"** the boss said figuratively with a sly smile. He hang up the phone and gathered up his men before they went out into the streets. He cast his invisibility spell on himself and everyone to launch surprise attacks on their targets. He also cast the no scent spell, so that they wouldn't be detected by dragons who would smell out their scent. This was also a good way to prevent any of the Aquarian night guards from getting involved in their crime. The group split up to go separate ways to the square. They were to hide on top of buildings, in the alleys, around the corners, behind large objects, and etc.

With everyone in place, the boss entered the square walked quietly towards the seemingly sleeping pair until he was 12 feet away. _'Letting your guard down eh? Not the best move, I'd say. Oh well, let's finish this,'_ he thought. Then he cast his lightning spell at the duo.

But at the quick second, the targets opened their eyes and dodged the spell. The man drew his sword and said, **"You like to wield powers I see. It won't help you. Magic is weak against a bound sword."** He implied that there was a 'specialty' to his sword. **"Let us end what you started all those years ago. My family will have justice for what you did." **

Keith chuckled out in amusement and said,**"Well now, if you want to die so badly. I'll be happy to grant you the favor. But let's see if you can find me!"** He used his wind magic to shoot himself up into the air like a rocket and used flight magic to stay airborne above the ground. Then he cast two brightly-colored and sparkling balls towards Ronan and the dragon. These were fireworks spell; the moment they hit the ground or the enemy, the balls would burst into a fiery explosion to painfully burn anyone caught in them.

After the warrior and his dragon dodged, the henchmen started firing arrows and casting magic spells at them give their boss some back up support. The Southwesterners took notice of the invisible gang's shadows exposed by the light poles and decided to take advantage of them. The dragon started taking out the gang thugs one by one or group by group using all his attacks and even attacking from the air. Some of them got burned and some got frozen in thick ice. Because some of the henchmen had been in or on top of buildings, the fiery breath that touched them made the buildings catch fire. So the surviving mages, in the buildings not on fire, had to resort to casting barriers to protect themselves from further attacks from the dragon. The others escaped the burning homes and to move somewhere else. Ronan used his shurikens and threw them at where the boss's spell came from. Keith turned sideways to let the sharp weapons fly by him into the wall of a store. The assassin shouted, **"Drake, barrier."** Drake flew around and formed an ice dome around them. Temporarily imprisoning himself, Ronan and the gang. The dome covered the entire town square and was as high as three two-story buildings. **"Nowhere to run now,"** the assassin told his enemy with a smirk.

The boss smirked back and replied, **"Oh really?"** Then he warped outside of the dome and was on top of it. Then he stared intently at the ground below and raised his hand up like a claw as used his earth magic to raise tall and sharp rocky spikes out from the ground beneath his enemies. Ronan jumped backwards to evade the spikes and backflipped onto the top of the fountain. Drake flew by and let his friend hop onto his back. Keith, having observed Ronan's moves, thought, _'Hmm, he's very acrobatic and reflexive. Simple attacks won't do at all. I'm going to have to perform some cunning tactics if I am to kill these pests.'_ The henchmen fired their arrows and cast their spells at the man and dragon duo flying in the air.

Drake flew toward the top of the dome he made. He launched a single spike at the dead center of it. When they got close enough, Drake whipped his tail and smacked it up all the way through the ice. The ice began to crack all the way down the dome before shattering completely. All the small shards and large pieces of ice would crash down on top of the gang members on the rooftops, either impaling them or crushing them. The survivors cast their barrier spells to shield themselves from the falling pieces. **"Just you and me now,"** Ronan shouted to the boss, who cast his float magic to descend to the ground softly.

The shards broke through the roofs of the buildings and woke up the residents. **"Hey, what's going on around here?"** asked a man, who was surprised to see a shard in his own home.

**"Oh my gosh the sky is falling!"** shouted a lady looking out the window.

Another man came running outside as his arms flailed in panic. **"My house is on fire and so is the market!"** he yelled. People started to flee their homes in panic to avoid being burned by the fire consuming their homes and the shards falling on them.

Minerva woke up startled when she heard the loud crash of ice falling down next to her bed. **"Oh my gosh, what was that?!"** she cried. She heard noises outside her house and looked through the window to see that neighborhood was on fire and the ice was everywhere. **"Oh my!"** she said. She quickly put on her clothes and rushed out of her home to join the panicking crowd in the streets. **"What's going on around here?"** she asked.

Drake threw Ronan to the closest rooftop, where the man dropped himself down from into the streets before blending into the shadows. The dragon flew up into the night sky where the gang couldn't see him. His dark brown scales let him hide in the sky easily. **"You want me dead? you'll have to find me on foot," **the assassin taunted the boss.

Keith brushed him off with a laugh and said, **"Hah, a challenge that I will take, boy!"** He was confident that he was going to kill his victim eventually. The man touched the ground and walked after the assassin into the street. The darkness would provide more advantage to his stealth than just his invisibility spell. The boss kept his eyes and ears sharp for wherever his prey might be. Unbeknownst to him, Keith's foot pulled a rope and set trigger to a trap. An arrow flew at him and shot into his shoulder.**"Hrk!"** the man groaned in pain as he clutched his wound. It seems like his nemesis has put up traps in the alley. In this pitch black darkness, the traps would be nearly impossible to find, so the boss cast a barrier around himself to prevent any more ambushes. The disadvantage in having a barrier would be that Ronan would be find him after he leaves the alley, but the good side to this was that he would be safe until then. The man continued to track down his enemy while the traps bounced off his barrier.

Minerva stayed out in the middle of the square, looking around at the fire on the buildings. She didn't know exactly how this mess happened, but some of the people around her were saying that the culprit was a dragon, while others accused the situation as being caused by a mage. More people speculated that the fire might have been an accident; there were no other guesses for the fallen ice shards. Aldric had merged into the crowd to use as meat shields, since he figured the dragon wouldn't harm the innocent citizen. Then he spotted the familiar blonde woman in the crowd and identified her as Minerva, a target he had missed during the raid. Taking up his crossbow, the spy aimed at her and got ready to fire. But before he could make his arrow fly, something hit him in the back of his leg. Aldric hissed in pain from the sharp sting and lost focus of his target. Before he could think of grabbing the object out of his leg, two more struck him in the back and paralyzed his body. The invisible man fell over and died.

As Minerva waited to see if the Aquarians would come over to fix the disastrous situation, she glanced to the side and noticed the same hooded man again picking up shurikens off the ground or strangely rather off the air. She wasn't sure how these ninja stars were able to float off ground like that. Maybe it was a magic trick or something. When the man looked up to meet her eyes for a bit, she said, **"Oh hello again, it looks like we keep running into each other, huh."** The man didn't reply and instead he ran off to somewhere. Minerva sighed, **"And there he goes."** She was kind of annoyed that she didn't get a responded when she tried to talk to him.

Keith came out of the darkness and saw the scene between Minerva and Ronan. He noticed that the two seemed to be acquainted with each other. He thought about taking the woman hostage, but he didn't know the exact relationship she had with the assassin. It would work well against Ronan if she was a friend or something more than that, because Keith didn't see any use of using complete strangers as his hostage to make his enemies hesitate and turn into easy targets. But then again, Ronan went to the ADR and tried to save random strangers. So maybe this acquaintance would be no different. The boss dispel his barrier and walked over to Minerva. He cast both his invisibility and sleep spells at her to make her unseen to the crowd as she falls helpless and unconscious. A few people surrounding her were surprised at how she suddenly disappeared in a blink of an eye in front of them. Keith picked up the blonde and carried her out of the crowd and into the dark place. At the dead end, he cast magic chains around Minerva's body. The chains were bluish-black and glowed light that was barely seen in the dark. Then he dispel the invisibility and made Minerva to be seen again. The boss at the side of the trash can for his enemy to come and find the bait.

After Keith pulled out the arrow on his wound, he formulated a plan and called his surviving henchmen to tell them about it on the cellphone. **"Men, meet me at the alleys behind the World Market. We're going to ambush this hooded snake once and for all,"** he said. Shortly after he hang up, he saw two more arrows flying at him. Luckily, they missed him by two inches and crashed into the concrete ground. The man figured out where they came from and cast his electric spell at Ronan's location. It missed as the cloaked man jumped out and wielded his katana to try to chop off his hands. But Keith was too quick as he cast his barrier to bounce off his attacker. Then ran over to the tied woman and held her up as he a knife against her throat. **"I finally got you. You've been a thorn in my side long enough. Now listen here, boy. If you value this girl's life, you will lay down your weapons right now or else watch her die,"** he said, sounding serious in his threat. **"One wrong move and blood will be on your hands." **Behind Ronan, the gang members snuck up behind him. All with their weapons armed and reading to attack in case the boss gives them the signal to do so.

The assassin got up, temporarily holding his sword with a tight grip. Then he sighed through his nose and said, **"Have your men stand down... If you want me dead this badly... I ask that the killing stroke be from you. You are a worthy adversary, your men don't deserve the honor. I also ask that you make it a clean death."** Keith was puzzled that his enemy could somehow detect where his henchmen were, despite them being invisible and quiet in their steps. Maybe he must extraordinary auditory senses; at least that was was the boss assumed. Ronan started removing his weapons one by one, letting them all drop to the side. Once he was done, Ronan down on one knee and begged, **"Spare the woman; she can do you no harm."**

Keith smirked, finally glad that he was going to end his nemesis once and for all. **"Very well then, if that is your wish. I'm glad to see that you have honor in you, young man. Your family must be very proud of you right now,"** he commented. The boss walked towards the assassin, carrying his hostage with him just as a safeguard in case he tries anything sneaky, as he continued, **"Speaking of them, would you like to meet them up in heaven? I'm sure you're going to have a pretty happy family reunion of there, after all you and them must miss each other very much."** He drew his sword back and thrust forward at Ronan.

At the last possible second, the assassin spun around the sword and grabbed the man's arm. He triggered his hidden blade, driving it into his spine between the shoulder blades, rendering Keith's body useless, but alive until he bled out. **"How about you go to the depths and burn,"** Ronan said with a fiery anger. The gang members heard their leader's yell of pain and gasped as they heard his body fall on the concrete ground. Minerva had dropped down as well for she was no longer being held by her captor. The assassin turn to where the gang's sound came from and made a threat to them, **"You can either run for your lives, or I will kill you all right now."** He stood ready for any opposition towards him.

The cowards all ran away for their lives and left their boss to die as they knew that they could not defeat him. **"Damn miserable... How could I... possibly... lose..."** said Keith with his voice growing weaker from dying.

Ronan stepped around, picking up his sword. **"You underestimated me at every turn and you were overconfident. I've trained my entire life for this moment. I avenged my family's murder with your blood,"** he said before ending Keith's life.**"Rest in pieces,"** he said, wiping the blood off his sword before sheathing it. With the gang leader dead, the magic chains around Minerva disappeared and the sleep spell was gone. The first thing the blonde woman heard as she woke up was the assassin asking, **"You alright? I'm sorry you were dragged into this mess."**

Opening her blue eyes, Minerva saw the hooded man again and found herself in the alley. She was bewildered as to how she got from one place to another. **"Hu-huh? Where am I? How did I get here? And what do you mean this mess?"** she asked the man.

The man looked to the dead body near them and then back to her. **"You were kidnapped by a criminal. He tried using you to get to me. He must've heard about my work at that building on the other side of town. He used magic on you, but he's dead now. You're free to go,"** he explained as he would help her back onto her feet.

Minerva was unnerved at hearing how she was kidnapped to be used as a bait for this hero. _'I can't believe someone would use me like this for murder. Even worse, I could have been killed along with him,'_ she thought shuddering at the horrific thought.

**"You should find someone to stay with for a few nights, just to be safe,"** suggesting the hooded man before he started to walk away. His dragon friend landed on the street outside the alley.

The girl replied to him, **"Thanks, I will. Do you think we will see each other again next time? I mean we keep running into each other a lot today."** She had a gut feeling that this wasn't the last time that they would ever see each other. It must have been destiny or some sort.

The man looked back at her and gave a short answer, **"Maybe."** Then he got onto the dragon's back and took off into the sky.

Minerva walked out the alley and went on home. She saw the Aquarians cleaning up the damage caused by the fire and the ice. She entered her house and dialed the phone for one of her female friends. **"Hello Whitney, may I stay over at your house for the night? I had a fire in my neighborhood and a giant piece of ice crashed down on my house,"** she said. Whitney replied 'sure' and Minerva left her house, carrying her pajamas. She took a taxi horse carriage over to her friend's house and slept there for the night.

* * *

Having found no refugee camp to destroy or dragons to recruit through the rest of the evening, the Vulture Horde went to sleep out in the woods. Zylanon and Eitri took watch as night guards in cased the humans attacked them in their sleep. It was a very boring job in their opinion, but it was worth straining their mind for the safety of the horde. For a few hours, the woods had reminded silent with only the occasional sounds of crickets, bats, and a prowling jaguar. That was until the guards heard the distant sound of a roar. Then came a small orange light in the horizon, which wasn't the rise of the sun as the sky was still black. A silhouette of a dragon in flying in the air had soon dropped down as if he/she had been shot. The guards knew that whatever was happening far away, it had to be bad. **"We need to wake everyone,"** Zylanon said, without taking his eyes off the horizon.

**"Yeah,"** Eitri agreed. He prodded the disaster dragon with his paw and told him without lowering his voice, **"Aeolus, wake up! We just spotted something."**

Aeolus opened his tired eyes and got up against his sleep-aching body's wishes. He had been hoping this night would go peacefully without any trouble, but it looks like they were going to have to deal with a situation at hand. **"What is it, Eitri?**" he asked.

While Zylanon went to wake the others up, the night magi answered, **"We found a dragon being shot down from the sky. There must be humans near by."**

After waking up Orion, the shadow dragon added, **"It's not just one dragon. There seems to be a skirmish between dragons and humans."** He looked off to where the battle was happening. The horde could hear quiet fighting roars from the distance.

Aeolus found that this was an opportunity to both gain new allies and destroy their enemies. **"That must be another horde. Come Vulture Horde, we must go out and aid them,"** he said to everyone. Then he told the nocturnal dragons, **"Zylanon and Eitri, lead the way."**

**"Yes sir,"** they said. The dragons got up and followed Zylanon and Eitri. Corona blew and held a fireball in her mouth to act as a torch for everyone. They got to the cliff where they saw to their awe, a camp that was three times larger than all the other human camps they've been to. Over that place was a horde of dragons trying to fight off the magic-barriered humans below them and losing badly. Arrows flew up into the pierced the dragons on their vital points, while the dragons countered with fireballs spewed at their enemies.

Aeolus noticed the light of the fire from Corona's mouth. Thinking that some of these humans would spot the Vulture Horde that way, the leader told her, **"Corona, turn off that fire ball now."**

The phoenix dragoness withdrew her flame and closed her mouth. **"Oh sorry,"** she said.

Leafwing remembered what the refugee horde leader back at the cave described about the army and thought that the description fitted well with these humans, given their camp size and the magic spells that were being cast now. **"Hey guys, is that the army the dragon back there was talking about?"** he asked.

**"It is,"** Orion answered. **"That's the very same army that wiped out Dedries's horde. And these fools over there won't stand a ghost of a chance out there. Just look at them!"** One by one the fighting horde was getting killed by the army. Lightning bolts zapped across the sky and struck the dragons dead.

The Vulture Horde traced these spells back to a few flying adolescent humans with magi dragon wings. Aeolus narrowed his eyes in repulsion at the sight of these freaks. _'Halflings...'_ he thought in contempt. Unlike hybrids, halflings were the creation of a natural reproduction between a human and a dragon. But these human-like creatures weren't born out of love; they were born out of rape. Slave masters would sometimes force a dragon against his/her will for pleasure, punishment, or just to get a halfling slave. Even though halfings were primarily slaves or killed at birth as it was a religious sin for humans to mate outside their species. Sometimes halflings would get same civil rights as humans after get out of slavery through work and education. Then they would get the liberty to have their very own draconic slaves. All dragons were stuck as slaves forever. All this resulted in Aeolus's resentment for this species. To him, halflings were a symbol of all wrongs done to his race.

The warring horde soon realized that it was no use as their assault was hardly putting a dent in the humans' numbers. An imperial fleshcrowne dragon spoke to the others urgently, **"Sunlight Horde, retreat! We're not winning this battle! These humans are tougher than we thought. We must leave immediately!"** Within the next second, an arrow shot through his neck. The fleshcrowne's dark green eyes went wide in great shock. He struggled to speak, or more likely roar, but the air was leaving his lungs and his blood was oozing out fast. The dead Sunlight Horde leader dropped from the sky and landed with a thud on one of the tents, probably crushing a human inside with his weight. The Sunlight dragons stopped trying to destroy their enemies and turned around to escape for their lives. The humans and halflings were none-too-merciful as they continued to shoot them down with their arrows and spells.

One gray dragoness got zapped on her wing and she yelped as she fell to the ground near the cliff. The soldiers, some of which held torches to see, ran towards the wounded dragoness with their spears ready to kill. The Vulture Horde were all fearful of the dragoness going to be murdered. Leafwing put his claws to his head and cried, **"Oh gosh, she's going to die!"**

Aeolus looked over at the night magi and told him hurriedly, **"Eitri, teleport the dragoness back over to the place we slept at!"**

**"I"m on it!"** the night magi cried hastily. He concentrated on the dragoness and sent her over to the woods. The people became surprised as the sudden disappearance of the disappeared dragoness as the spears thrown by them had hit the empty space that was the grass.

Then the horde leader told Eitri, **"Now warp the other dragons you see back to there as well."**

**"Yes sir,"** Eitri said. He started teleporting all the Sunlight Horde members he could find from those flying in the sky to the others wounded on ground. The humans stopped attacking and began to wonder where all the dragons were disappearing off to.

After warping the last Sunlight Horde member away from camp, a magic beam fired at where the last dragon had been and shot next to the Vulture Horde. The beam's small explosive impact gave off a brief light to reveal Aeolus's horde for a second. The halfling boy, who casted the spell, told the other halflings where the horde was. The magi halfling girl's hand lights up with electricity before she holds it forward and shots out a white thunder bolt aimed at Aeolus. With quick reflexes, Leafwing jumps in between his leader and the spell and takes full brunt of the electricity. His body flashed every second millisecond showing his skeleton inside before dropped dead frozen with all his limps stretched outward. The leaf pygmy's burnt body gave off crisp smoke as his eyes stared wide open into space. The horde looked him horrified as Corona tearfully shouted, **"Leafwing, no!"**

The disaster dragon wasted no time in telling Eitri to take them out of danger. **"Get us out of here now!"** he cried. Without a word, the night magi teleported the Vulture Horde away before any of them could suffer the same fate as their unfortunate friend.

* * *

Back in the woods, the Sunlight Horde members were all confused as to how and why they were brought over to a different place. A light flashed for a second and in its place was the Vulture Horde. The Sunlight dragons turned their attention to the strangers among them who shown in the light of Bam and Zylanon's fires; their eyes staring at each one of them. A canopy dragon stepped a bit towards them and asked, **"Who are you?"**

The disaster dragon answered him, **"I am Aeolus, the leader of the Vulture Horde."** He looked over to his subordinates and introduced them one at a time, **"And this is my cousin, Bam."**

The navy blue smiled happily at the Sunlight Horde, to which some of them smiled back at him and greeted, **"Hi!"**

Aeolus continued with the rest of his members, **"Our healer, Hewey; our weather controller, Lutarn; our stealth fighter, Zylanon; our newest recruit, Orion; our fire starter, Corona."** The phoenix dragoness was still crying over the death of her best friend. Hewey was doing his best to comfort her by brushing his head against her. **"And lastly our magic user, Eitri. He was the one who teleported all of you out of danger away from the humans." **His expression turned to that of seriousness as he continued, **"But we are not safe yet. We're very much still near the human's territory. Come, we must get farther away before they find us."**

The Vulture Horde ran passed the dragons as to distance themselves from the camp. The Sunlight Horde looked at each other, wondering if they should follow him or not. One ember dragon called after Aeolus, **"Wait, where are we going?"**

The Vulture Horde stopped as Aeolus turned around and answered, **"I don't know, but anywhere is better than here. Now if you don't want to be found by the humans or their wretched halfling offsprings, I suggest that you come with us." **The Sunlight Horde felt that they had no choice and decided to go with them anyway.

* * *

**Author's Note:** So during the RP where Minerva gets involved with the battle between Ronan and the gang, I had forgotten to have Keith remember the arrow out of his wound. It was a stupid and careless mistake on my part that costed some of Keith's display of wisdom and made the fight less challenging for LordTorch. And in the next chapter, we will get to see the Vulture Horde again with a new character, and maybe see Kathia, too.


	17. Zeditha

**Chapter 16: Zeditha**

At the light of dawn shining through the closed blinders of the windows, Kathia woke up and removed herself from the covers of her bed. The first thing she had on her mind was the state and position of her father's construction company, Rittevon Inc. She wondered how it's business was doing recently since the new law changes. Some of the dragons they had probably went from owned slaves to hired employees. The girl frowned at the thought, because that would mean some of earned cash would go to these overgrown lizards, while leaving less for herself and the schools they funded. But perhaps maybe that wasn't the case. So just to check, Kathia went over to the cordless telephone that was on her dresser and picked up the receiver off its base. She dialed the company's number onto the receiver's buttons. Then she pressed the receiver against her right ear and waited for the person on the other end to answer. But instead of the receptionist, a voice machine delivered the bad news to her, _"We are sorry to inform you that the Rittevon Construction Company is no longer in service as the Aquarian Army has taken over the city's jobs of building construction. It has been great pleasure doing business for the city of Windfall, formerly known as Cypress, for all these years. Thank you and have a wonderful day."_

Kathia slowly put the receiver back in its face as the feeling of shock and despair swelled up in her. She couldn't believe what she has just heard; her father's company, no longer functioning now that it was obsolete compared to what the Aquarians can do. It was bad enough she no longer had parents and a car to drive, now both her source of income and her intern job was lost as well. Every day it seems like the dragons were taking away things that were important to her life. Who knows how long it would be until she lost everything?

A savory smell of bacon and sausages cooking came into the girl's room as Mrs. Merryweather called from downstairs, **"Mistress Kathia, breakfast is ready!"**

The girl looked at the open door leading to the hallway and stairs with a frown. With the terrible news in her mind, she didn't have much of an appetite. But at the same time, she didn't want to keep her maid waiting after all the work she slaved over the stove. **"I'm coming,"** said Kathia. She left her room and made her way down the stairs to the dining room. There she saw a plate of bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, and a pair of turkey sausages on the plate accompanied by a glass of orange juice sitting on the table. The girl pulled the chair out, so she could sit at the table and eat. She could only ate a little at a time as she wondered how she was going to find another way to make money to survive. Getting a different job would suffice and probably be easy too, since some of the employees died in the massacre. She didn't want a job in the fast food service or a retail store, since Kathia felt that an upper class girl like herself was above that. Perhaps job searching online would get her the job that fits her the best. But the job she needs hopes that it does involve working with or for dragons, since she felt they didn't deserve anything good after everything that's happened. Something like a job in data entry for example would be good for her.

Mrs. Merryweather stopped by the doorway and said to her mistress, **"Mistress Kathia, don't forget that you have to meet your friend, Jason, at the backlot to show off your magic spells."**

Kathia turned her attention away from the food to look at her maid. She hid her stress beneath a calm tone to avoid worrying the woman, **"Thanks for the reminder, Mrs. Merryweather."**

**"You're welcome, my lady,"** the maid said as she went away from the door. Kathia thought about the nice black man and wondered if he could help her with her problems. Getting a bit hopeful, the girl ate her breakfast albeit faster this time and drank her orange juice, so that she could get to the backlot in time to practice her spells while she waited.

* * *

Aeolus woke up to the smell of blood and fresh meat near him. His eyes opened to see Zylanon's feet standing before him. The leader looked up and noticed the two brocket deer the shadow dragon held in his mouth. The shadow dragon dropped them before his leader and said, **"Eitri and I went to do some morning hunting and brought the horde some breakfast."** Before Aeolus could call him out on them leaving the group defenseless, Zylanon said, **"Don't worry, we took shifts. That way we can both guard the horde and hunt at the same time."**

The disaster dragon was pleased with his soldier's smart idea. **"Well that was brilliant of you, Zylanon. I couldn't be more grateful for you and Eitri,"** he said.

**"Why thank you, my leader. It makes me feel honored to be praised by you,"** said the proud shadow dragon, who bowed his head. **"I do enjoy serving you and the horde."**

**"I'm glad you do,"** replied Aeolus. Then he thought the other horde they had rescued last night and asked, **"Also, did you bring food for the Sunlight Horde as well?"**

Zylanon answered, **"Yes, we did. We even got each of their diet right."** His head turned to look over to the Sunlight Horde eating up the breakfast suited to their different breeds.

Aeolus looked behind to see them along with the Vulture Horde eating animals and plants. He turned back to his subordinate and said to him, **"Very good, Zylanon. Your knowledge and consideration was very helpful to everyone."**

The shadow dragon smiled and humbly replied, **"Oh you flatter me, my leader. But I do admit that the idea was mostly Eitri's. If anything, he should get more thanks than I."**

**"I see; well then, let me thank him,"** said the disaster dragon. He pictured the dark purple magi in his mind and made telepathy with him. He expressed his approval and said, _'Eitri, Zylanon told me how it was your idea to have one dragon hunt and the other remain to guard. I am impressed with how you thought about this without needing me to tell you. You have saved us some time and energy, so that we won't need to hunt. For that, you have my thanks.'_

Eitri's self-satisfied response sounded in his mind, _'Why you're welcome, Aeolus. I'm glad I thought of this idea as well. Bam, especially, was happy to find food sitting in front of him.'_ The navy blue dragon beside him was happily munching on a mound of granadillas, maracuyas, and custard apples. He was clearly enjoying their fruity tastes.

_'It looks he is,_' Aeolus said after observing his cousin.

Seeing his leader caught up in his telepathy, Zylanon got ready to move. But first he reminded his leader, **"Don't forget to eat your food while it's still fresh."** Then the shadow dragon left to join Lutarn and Orion and sat with them.

Taking Zylanon's advise, the disaster dragon took one of the brocket deer and chewed on its body. After most of its meat was eaten, save for the head and limbs, Aeolus ate the other one. Bam swallowed the last of his fruits and turned to his cousin to say, **"Hey cous."**

**"Hmm?"** hummed the disaster dragon, wondering what Bam wanted with him.

The navy blue looked over to the Sunlight Horde and asked, **"Think these guys will want to join us?"**

Aeolus had intended to recruit the survivors into his horde right after breakfast. He answered surely, **"Of course, they will. With their leader lost and their horde is scattered. It'll be easy to get them on our side. Even my fame will help me out. And I got just the right words to convince them."** He rose to stand up and speak to the other horde, **"May I have your attention, Sunlight Horde."** The dragons of both hordes turned their attention away from their food and whatever conversation they were having to look at the disaster dragon. **"Last night, your horde went up against an army of humans terrorizing the lives of dragons in this forest, only for it to end in failure. We all watched your leader died right before our eyes and your comrades slain. Even one of ours was killed by the magic spell of their halfling child."** Corona lowered her head in grief while Hewey wrapped his wing and tail around her in pity and sympathy. A canopy dragon and a wind dragoness looked over at the phoenix dragoness and assumed that one of the Vulture Horde members killed was someone she had a bond with. The two felt sorry for her. Aeolus told everyone, **"We don't know if any of your comrades beside yourselves had survived the battle. But if they did, I would like for you to contact them telepathically and see if they are alive."**

The Sunlight Horde immediately started contacting their friends to see if they were alive. At first their faces were full of hope and worry about the status of their comrades for nearly a minute. But then their expressions gradually became dispirited as if something had gone wrong. One of the two ember dragons told Aeolus, **"I'm not hearing anyone. I think they're all dead."**The other Sunlight dragons told him the exact same thing as well.

The disaster dragon frowned and said, **"Well this is quite unfortunate. I was hoping to see if Eitri can bring them here so that we can all band together and travel to look for more dragons to build up a larger horde. We're going to need a big number of powerful dragons if we hope to destroy the army. Speaking of... how many dragons did the Sunlight Horde have?"**

A black ghost dragon told him, **"We had thirty-three, sir."**

**"Thirty-three?"** Bam said in slight awe. **"That's a bigger number than Dedries's horde."**

Aeolus told his cousin, **"Yes it is, but it's only by a few numbers. We're going to aim for two hundred, unless we can find really useful dragons like cassares and magis who can thwart the halflings."** With breeds like them, they would be capable of removing the army's only source of magic and overwhelming the humans with their spells.

Orion took a liking to the idea of having those two breeds in the horde. **"Hey, that's a great idea. We should have had guys like those in my horde,"** he said.

The brute dragon agreed with the magma dragon and said, **"And mine, too. I would have saved us our friends' lives."**

After a chorus of mm-hmms and yeses, a gray dragoness asked, **"So where are we going to find these dragons?"** She suggested an idea, **"We could like have your night magi friend here place a tracking spell on those we know and teleport to them?"**

Aeolus thought that this was a good plan indeed. He thought about two dragons in mind, other than Atlas, that he could recruit. He turned his head over to the night magi and said, **"Eitri, I need you to cast a tracking spell on these dragons in mind."  
**  
But before the disaster dragon could give the night magi the mental images of his fellow slaves, Eitri replied, **"I'm sorry, sir. I can't cast that spell. I'm unable to."** Magi dragons who weren't purebred would have some spells unable to them, depending on what their genes were.

The disaster dragon felt a little disappointed, but he didn't mind as he said, **"Then we'll just have to travel and find them ourselves."** That way, they would destroy any settlements in sight without having to skip over them. **"But first, we need to know who each of the Sunlight dragons are."** He looked at the gray dragoness first at the far left side and asked, **"We'll start with you first. What is your name?"**

The gray introduced herself, **"My name is Stormy, sir."**

**"Okay, then," **said Aeolus. Then he looked to the male brute next to her and asked, **"And you?"**

**"Tavurth," **the brute dragon answered simply.

Aeolus looked at the dark navy blue ember dragon next and asked, **"And who are you and what are your powers besides those associated with your breed? You don't seem to look like a pure-bred ember dragon."**

The ember dragon answered, **"I'm Udiya, sir and that's because I'm part electric on my mother's side. I inherited her powers of lightning."**

**"That sounds good,"** Aeolus said to Udiya. He turned to the other ember dragon, a pure-bred, and inquired, **"Now you, what's your name?"**

**"Drakor,"** the ember said.

After that, the disaster dragon went to the pair of black ghost dragons next and asked, **"Now tell me your names and about your breed, because I haven't heard about your kind before."**

The male of the pair answered, **"I am Eatorn and this is my mate, Volkin. We're black ghost dragons, a breed native to Dominina. Our special power is to turn ghost-like and pass through anything solid. It's because of this ability we were able to escape slavery."**

The female, Volkin, added, **"But when we're in ghost form, magic attacks do us more harm than ever."** She looked down to the burned scar under her wing, where flesh and bone was seen.

Aeolus thought the wound looked quite painful to the eye. Thankfully, Hewey went over to her and healed her wound. Volkin thanked him for his help. After asking the 4 remaining Sunlight Horde members their names, Aeolus said to them, **"Now that we all know who each of you are, I hereby welcome the survivors of the Sunlight Horde into the Vulture Horde. Together we will crush the army and all other humans around the world!"** A chorus of roars filled the air as all the dragons were eager to get their revenge on the species that had caused them so much pain.

* * *

The Vulture Horde was on the move again; this time they were flying over the treetops. Earlier, Aeolus had told all the dragons in his group to spread word about his horde needing recruits to annihilate the army through telepathy and to tell him if there is anyone interested. So the horde is on their way to get those dragons until their numbers were big enough for the raid. On the way, Aeolus had heard Atlas speak to him about all her friends' responses. _'Hey Aeolus, I spoke to everyone about the Vulture Horde and I got some bad news for you. Nobody wants to join your horde,'_ she said.

_'Why is that?'_ the disaster dragon inquired.

The magi told him why, _'Some of them have families to take care o_f; others are in different hordes; and only one of them, who with some dragons, is_ living in that rebuilt city, that named Windfall.'_

Aeolus was perplexed as to why some dragons would destroy a city and then rebuild it. _'They rebuilt a city, but why?'_ he asked.

_'I have no idea, either,'_ said Atlas, who was just as confused as her friend was. _'But apparently, some fire warrior dragons calling themselves the Aquarians came over to Cypress and turn that place into Windfall. So it's now a city where dragons and humans live together as equals. But the humans there don't seem to like it though.'_

_'Of course the wouldn't,'_ said the disgruntled horde leader. _'This is humans we're talking about. Why on Veleia would they think the humans would want to suddenly live peacefully with them after what those fiends did to us after all these centuries and what we did to them a few days ago?'_ Knowing how humans were treacherous by nature, Aeolus could see the disaster that would befall Windfall. _'Those fools are playing with fire; it's only a matter of time before the humans turn against the dragons and slaughter everyone inside that new city of theirs.'_

_'I totally agree with you Aeolus,'_ replied Atlas in disbelief. _'I couldn't believe that no one was seeing this. It's outrageous!'_

The disaster dragon shook his head and said, _'Well let them mind their own business for now. They'll learn their lesson when the time comes.'_

The magi replied, _'And in the meantime, I'll put tracking _spell on my friend right now so that he_ can be safe.'_ After a long pause,_'Okay done, so what are you going to do now, Aeolus?'_

The disaster dragon answered, _'Well since none of your friends are interested, I may as well look for them in Solomos by myself.'_

_'Alright then; hope you get lots of them!'_ Atlas rooted for him. Then the telepathic connection ended.

After some minutes of travelling later, Bam caught whiff of a scent and looked down to see a dark purple female dragonet laying on the branches of one of the nut trees. She was long-necked and floppy-eared with a whip-like tail and swirls of maroon, black, and different blues on her body. **"Hey look, Aeolus. There's someone down there. Perhaps she can join our horde,"** he said.

**"Very well, let us go down there and meet her,"** Aeolus said. The horde flew down and landed by the tree with the sleeping dragonet. The leader approached the tree and talked to her, **"Excuse me, young one. Wake up."**

The dragonet uncurled herself and climbed down the tree. She had her wings tucked to the sides and asked, **"What are you here for?"**

The horde leader explained, **"We're looking for dragons who are willing to join us in the fight against the human army that has terrorized these woods. We will take anyone with us, but I do prefer someone with exceptional skills like magic and great agility. Tell me, what are your skills and powers?"** He wanted to see what this dragonet had, so that he could think of a good strategy to place her and the other dragons the next time they attacked humans.

The dragonet dithered and stared at Aeolus for a few seconds before relaxing slightly. **"I'm not the best of magic-users, but I have some skills,"** she said, quickly setting a small bush alight to prove her point. **"I prefer to use claws, teeth and tail."**She leaped back to the tree and made a quick circuit of deft leaps, up, down, backtracking, and digging her claws into a trunk as she climbed.

Aeolus watched nimble leaps and thought, _'She's certainly agile, that's for sure.'_ This agility would be useful in evading some of the enemy's attacks. On the last jump, the dragonet opened her wings as she gripped the tree. The horde leader caught sight of a holed wound underneath her wing. After she snapped it closed in half a second, the disaster dragon asked in concern, **"You, what happened below your wing? You look like you've been struck there."** He figured he should get Hewey the healer dragon to look at her wing.

The dragonet trembled slightly and admitted, **"Er... It got caught by an arrow. I can't fly."**

**"An arrow... So a human has shot you. You should get healed immediately,"** Aeolus said, noting the obvious. He turned his head around to look at the healer dragon and said to him, **"Hewey, come over here and help this one out."**

**"I'm coming," **Hewey responded as he made his way over to the dragonet. He lifted up her wing to examine the wound.**"Hmm... This one looks recent; but it's nothing too hard that my healing magic can't fix."** Charging up his healing magic, he told her, **"Okay, just stand still and your wound will be all gone in a matter of a few seconds."** He hung his foot over the wound and it glowed in a light green aura as he repaired the torn tissue and sealed the bleeding hole. The dragonet watched in amazement as her wound healed. **"There it's all done!"** the healer said, smiling at a good work done.

**"Thank you,"** she said as she stared at her repaired wing.

**"You're welcome,"** Hewey replied before moving back to join the others.

The dragonet flapped it gently and then opened the other wing. She rose into the air and did a few maneuvers. The dragons watched her fly around, observing her turns, loops, and glides. After she dropped back down, Aeolus judged her flight and told her, **"You're very agile and flexible in your flight and leaps. If you have quick reflexes to go with them, you can dodge almost every kinds of attack. But enough about your maneuverability, let's see your powers now."**

The dragonet rolled her eyes and quickly set fire to a bush. Then she leaped into the air and hovered. The horde watched her to see what she would do next. But when half a minute came, nothing happened. Sighing, the dragonet brought her tail in front of her before she settled back onto the ground. **"I've been trying to use magic for years,"** she explained to Aeolus. **"Never got the hang of it, though. I just tried to summon a lightning ball, ****_supposedly_**** one of the easiest forms of magic. Ah well, I have my fire."** She curled herself around the flaming bush and separated it further from the forest.

The disaster dragon said to her, **"Well young one, perhaps you would like to learn how to use magic from the night magi, Eitri. His breed is the descendant of the true magi dragons and because of that, he exceeds well in magic. He will teach you how to use magic the proper way. But of course, if you want to learn from him, you'll have to join the horde."** Having another magic user would be a valuable asset to the horde, as she would combat the magic of the humans mages they encounter.

**"I don't want to embarrass myself."** the dragonet said, shaking her head. **"Anyway, my teacher was a magi dragon. He never told me who he was descended from; he never had time. He taught me how to focus on creating a lightning ball, but our lesson was cut short by a group of human warriors. They slew my mentor before he had time to fight back,**" she told; her voice was bitter, but resigned. **"That was a long time ago. I keep trying, but..."** She flicked her tail towards where she had just utterly failed to conjure anything. **"As you saw, I'm still no good at all. I work fine with tooth and claw."**

Aeolus closed his red eyes in respect for the deceased mentor and said, **"It's a shame you never got to spend much time with your mentor. You would have been a great magic user if not for the humans."** Then he reopened his eyes and reasoned, **"But young one, you shouldn't be afraid to try to learn magic again. You weren't good at it because you didn't get enough training time. You won't know how good you are at it until you've had proper training. With magic, you'll be come a better fighter and add more arsenal than just fangs and claws. You'll be even stronger that way. You would want that, would you?" **

The dragonet shrugged and place a paw over the fire. It sizzled slightly and went out. **"I don't care, really. I just hate magic, because it killed my mentor and my only friend, and I could never use it."** She closed her emerald green eyes and continued mournfully, **"I couldn't save him."** Her eyes again with an expression of anger on her face. **"I'll never have a friend again!"** she hissed madly, her eyes flaring with fear and anger. She backed into the trees and raised her wings.

Aeolus could see how distraught she was about her past that made her bitter. **"Such pain... The humans took away someone very precious to you. I know that feeling well,"** the green dragon said, understandingly. **"Because I had the same thing happen in my life. The only difference between you and I was that I lost my family."**

Bam, the horde leader's cousin, looked at the dragoness and emphasized the detail, **"His immediate family. I just happened to be Aeolus's cousin."**

With his eyes furrowing to look mad, Aeolus growled, **"The humans had taken everything away from me. They took everything away from all of us! Even today, they're still going at it. That's why I'm building this horde so that we can crush the humans once and for all."**

The dragonet closed her eyes for a few seconds. Then when she opened them they were their normal color. **"I'll join you,"** she hissed determinedly. **"But promise me this. If we ever find the people who killed my mentor, I get to rip them to shreds. Personally. ****_Slowly._****" **

Aeolus nodded and said, **"That I'll let you do."** Keeping promises he can do and making them happen would surely increase his charisma that would be necessary to look good in the hordes and other dragon's eyes and attract more fighters for his cause. **"Now that you're in my horde, I think we should get to know one another's names. My name is Aeolus, the leader of the Vulture horde. What is your name, young dragoness?"** he asked.

**"My name is Zeditha,"** the dragonet answered as her tail twitched like a cat's. **"Well, what does the horde do? I assume we do more than crush humans?"**

**"Well Zeditha, while it's true that our horde's purpose is to eradicate the humans. We will also help out any dragons we find who are in trouble,"** the disaster dragon answered her. The helping out part wasn't just his good will towards his kind, but it was also a necessary tactic in earning adoration and admiration that would inspire dragons to join his horde.

Bam came up to add in the conversation and said with an open smile, **"And we also hunt for food for when we get hungry and need to eat."**

Aeolus turned his head to give his cousin a disapproving look for the interruption and said, **"Bam, we know that. There's no need to speak of an unimportant detail that's biologically instinctive among everyone."**

The blue dragon shrunk his head back in guilt and folded his wings close to his body. **"Sorry,"** he apologized.

**"Well, I'm not a bad hunter,"** Zeditha nodded and said. **"I sometimes watch cats playing with mice and I like to try that. Sometimes I play cat with deer, but mostly with rabbits. It's fun to block their holes so they can't escape down them as well, or to block them into their burrows and terrify them in their own homes."** She grinned evilly. **"Mostly I do that when I've encountered humans. They make me so ****_angry!_****"** she said as she slapped her tail onto the ground hard. Then picked it up and curled around it. Aeolus could tell that her action had hurt herself as she was licking the tail gently to reduce the pain.

**"Well Zeditha, I'm sorry to say that we won't get to be playing with animals much as we are a very busy horde,"** the disaster dragon told her frankly. **"But maybe you might get a chance should circumstances call for it."** After all, the humans aren't going to get themselves killed quickly enough. And who would be there to accelerate the extinction than the Vulture horde?

**"It doesn't matter too much anyway,"** Zeditha said and shrugged. **"I won't want to do that if I can just kill every human I meet. After all, it's them who make me angry."** She jumped into the air and hovered. **"So,"** she said, **"Shall we go?"**

Aeolus replied, **"Of course, we were getting to that."** He looked at his whole horde and said, **"Everyone, move out."** The horde moved on through the woods to search for the next potential recruits.

* * *

Atlas flew out of the Castle of Fire to go do some hunting for breakfast. She had taken a set of armor for herself and renewed it with her magic she learned from the book on armory, so that it was fresh and without rust. But before she left, she raised a thick earthly wall up the double doors to make sure that no unwanted intruder would go in and possibly do harm to her nieces. The magi flew over the forest searching out for fruits and wildlife to kill and bring back. A deer had sensed her movement in the air and dashed off to leave before its predator would strike it down. But Atlas saw the animal's tawny pelt and movement from the trees below. She predicted where the animal was going to be when the spell hit and cast her wind blade to sever its head off. The spell had also cut off a thin branch that had been in the way. The dragoness flew down to her prey and lowered her head down to eat it.

* * *

**Author's Note:** That part about Kathia going out to eat with Jason, I had forgotten that she had already eaten earlier. Also, I would have added more to Aeolus's last section, but I felt it would have made the chapter longer than it should be. So I ended it with what Atlas is doing at her beginning of the morning.

Stormy, Tavurth, Eatorn, Volkin, Drakor, Udiya, Rainstorm, Mitya, Nimbus, and Lhukijita (c) me

Zeditha (c) Zeditha


	18. The Dragon Who Can Turn Human

**Chapter 17: The Dragon who can turn Human**

Atlas found her next prey, which was another deer. She struck it down with another wind blade spell to its throat and watched fall down dead. The magi landed down by the animal and was about to teleport the second kill over to Danielle, but then someone ran into her hindleg. **"****Uh! What the hell?"** she asked, turning head to the rear to see a spiky-haired blonde man in black clothes and the sleeping black-haired man he dropped onto the ground with a soft thud. Strangely, the white-haired one seemed to smell more dragon than human, but he certainly didn't look like a hybrid. Perhaps he was a shape-shifting dragon who can turn human? Another human scent caught her nose; she looked up see a black-haired man, who almost resembled the blonde, in the tree line top. The blonde man stabbed his sword in the ground started to gasp for air; clearly he was exhausted. The magi looked at the weapons the two of the trio had and suspected them as hunters. Tensing herself with wariness, she growled at both of them and asked, **"****Alright humans, are you dragon slayers or not?"**

The blonde turned to face Atlas and answered, **"I'm not, but I would not put it past Marc to kill you for fun."** He turn his head back to where the guy known as Marc have stood a second ago.

**"Hey, where'd he go?"** asked the magi, intent on finding him so that she could get to him first before he did her. The bad guy was no where in sight.

The blonde swordsman stood there for a few seconds before he put his sword away and went to pick back up the sleeping man. **"I'm sorry if we interrupted your breakfast,"** he said as he placed his companion back on his back. He was about to collapse from the brunette's weight with his swords for he had little strength left. **"I hate to ask, but is there somewhere safe we could spend the night at? We have no energy, either of us, and we have not yet ate for some time, aside from a few apples,"**the blonde asked Atlas as he set the brunette back down against the tree not far from him.

**"Well I do live in a castle. But it's not fancy like you think it is,"** Atlas told them. **"That place was old and dusty when I uncovered it yesterday. It originally belonged to the Fire King, but he's long dead."** But for the safety of her nieces, she wasn't about to let them go there yet. **"I can teleport you guys there, but only if you answer one question. What species is that guy you're with? It's weird for humans to smell so much like dragons,"** the magi asked.

The swordsman looked to the brunette and answered, **"He's a white dragon; he took human form because he exhausted himself from flight."**

**"Well that explains the smell,"** said Atlas, who now felt that they were good. White dragons, unlike certain hostile breeds, would never harm other dragons as they were gentle pacifists by nature. Since the swordsman was allied with that kind of dragon, then he most likely wouldn't harm the nieces as he was apparently dragon-friendly. She said to him, **"Okay, I'll send you guys there and then I can get some food for you, too." **She pushed deer towards the blonde, she said, **"And while you're at the castle, give this deer to my niece, Danielle and tell her it's from me. I'll let my nieces know that you're at the castle."** The swordsman nod his head in agreement before she teleported the two to the main hall of the castle.

The dragoness turned back to her deer and continued eating it. While she finished it up, she contacted the hatchlings with telepathy, _'Danielle, Kylie, we got guests in the castle. Go to the entrance and give them a nice warm welcome when you meet them.'_

_'Okay, Aunt Atlas,'_ said the hatchlings, who were eager to see the strangers.

_'Also, Danielle, blonde...' _The magi paused briefly, thinking that the whiptail wouldn't know what color blonde is._'Well yellow-haired human will be there to give you a deer.'_

Danielle asked, _'Is he like Henry and Yukki?'_

_'Er, I don't know. Maybe,'_ said Atlas. She wasn't too sure of the blonde's personality, but he did appear cool and honest so far. _'Anyway, if you two need something, just let me know, alright?'_ she said.

_'Alright!'_ the sisters promised.

After the telepathic connection was cut, the magi used her knowledge of humans to figure out their diet. She knew that they ate pigs, chicken, cows, goats, sheep, fish, shrimp, eggs, lobsters, crabs, fruits, vegetables, and the artificial sweets made in the form of candy, cakes, bread, etc. She figured that the supermarket she went to with Henry would feed the human, but what about the dragon who was in human form? Maybe the human food can feed him too, like how the popisicles did for Kylie. Atlas pictured the supermarket's parking lot in her mind and teleported herself there.

There at the city ruins, the magi entered the grocery store through the hole she made on the night she rescued Henry from the vampire dragons. Raiding the supermarket's supplies would be easy since vampires were permanently asleep until nightfall, meaning that no sounds or touch would wake them during the day. Atlas ducked below the ceiling to allow herself to fit in with the building. But at the same time, she had to maneuver past obstacles as conveyor belt machines, sleeping vampires, and shopping carts. **"Damn this narrow place. Why couldn't I be as small as that bloodsucker?"** she cursed. That or she wished she knew a spell to make herself smaller or turn human. But nevertheless, Atlas has still got to try if she wanted to feed her niece and guests. The dragoness went over to the produce section and noticed that all of the fruits and vegetables were gone; probably eaten by the dragons.**"Well damn, I guess I better go get some sweets instead,"** she said to herself.

She squeezed her way through and stood next to the aisle entrances to grab many variety of foods that were the closest to her. Cake mixes, canned foods, candy, chips, cookies, drinks, pet food, etc. She may have spoken human, but that didn't mean that she knew what some of the words of the products meant as human languages varied between countries and she herself was originally from Solomos, where she spent most of her slave days before coming to Rudvich.

* * *

The sisters ran through the hallways until they got to the main hall. They looked to the humans near the green lights, which were radiated by the flares on the floor. Kylie observed them and asked, **"Is that dem?"** She wondered if they were the guests that their aunt mentioned.

**"Yeah, I think so,"** said Danielle. Then a savory scent reached her nose and made her hungry. She saw the deer nearby the humans and exclaimed, **"And oh, dey got da deer, too. I'm gonna go eat!"** She raced over to the deer and started eating it without so much as looking at the two humans.

Kylie ignored the furry meal and went over to the blonde man, whom she introduced herself to, **"Hi, my name is Kywie. What's yew name?"**

The blonde look at her with a smiled and answered, **"My name is Strider. Over there-"** He turn his head to see that his companion had left his spot. **"Ok Axle, you over grown white lizard, where did you go?"** Strider asked as he got up.

**"Wizard?**" the balloon hatchling asked, tilting her head slightly in curiosity as to why Strider called the other human a lizard. She also wondered why he couldn't see Axle standing on the other side of him.

The flares on the floor went out, making the main hall dim again. The blonde guy took another one out of the bag pulled the cord on the end of it. As it emulated a green flame, the brunette man's face was shown in its light. **"Boo!"** the older man said in a childish voice, which unaffected Strider. Even Kylie wasn't startled as her night vision allowed her to see what he was up to.

The blonde snapped at his companion, **"Sometimes, Axle, you are a child. Grow up will you. You are almost 500 years old."**

**"So any ideas where we are?" **Axle asked.

Strider shrugged and said, **"Don't know; just know we were teleported here by a magi dragon and Marc is somewhere in the forest. So that means Spinx is not far behind, seeing how I manage to get this."**He held a photo out to Axle and they both looked at the front and back of it for a bit.

The brunette grabbed the photograph and the flare and lit it on fire. He watched the photo burn into a black ash and then he smashed the small pile under his feet. It was a black smudge on the floor when Kylie saw it. **"The less people know about this, the better,"** Axle said under his breath. He then looked at the balloon hatchling and asked, **"You wouldn't happen to be related to the magi dragon that teleported us here, would you?"**

Kylie noticed that the person called Axle smelled like a dragon. Wait, was he a hybrid? When the brunette talked to her, the hatchling got scared and ran over to one of the pillars and hid behind it. **"Wah! Dun hurt me,"** she cried.

Danielle stopped eating and looked at her sister. **"Kywie, what's wrong?"** She wondered what got her sister so scared.

The two humans both look at the balloon hatchling. **"Hurt you? Why on earth would I hurt you?"** Axle sounded confused by this. **"Wait. Did something happen to you in the past?"** He asked in concern. He turned his head and saw the smirk on Strider's face. **"What are you smirking about?"** Axle snapped at the other man, who started to laugh now.

The blonde said, **"Dragon scent is coming from you, which means your magic power weaken a bit over the past week. How much you want to bet it that your in human form and your Dragon scent is thicker on you?"** He looked over at Kylie and assured her, "He won't hurt you. He does not attack anyone that does not attack him or his friends."

The balloon hatchling slowly peaked her head over the pillar and asked nervously, **"****W-weally?"**

Strider back away from his friend a bit and told him, **"You might as well show them your true dragon form."** Axle back up out of range of the flare. Within moments, the man's body transformed into that of a white dragon. The scent from his dragon form could be smelled very much now. Axle laid down, showing he was no threat, even if he was 6 times their size. He curled his tail around to his head and laid his head down on it, but still leaving his blue eyes on the hatchlings. On his body, just right under his wing, was a scar from a sword that could be clearly seen. Kylie stared at him for a bit before she slowly walked over to him; cautious as to whether he'll attack or not. He didn't. Her nervousness died down and she started to feel safe around him.

Danielle looked at Axle's dragon form and asked, **"****Are yew a hybwid?"** From her knowledge of hybrids, some of them looked like humans and they had the ability to turn into dragons. Perhaps Axle was one, considering he smelled like a dragon, which was another trait of hybrids.

The white dragon said with a bit of disappointment, **"No I'm not; though from where I'm from, I'm called a shape-shifter for I have the power to alter my form. But here, I'm a full dragon with magic power do do so. I rather keep a low profile that I'm a dragon, for from where I'm from, there are not many of my kind left."**

**"Not a wot, why?"** Kylie asked. She and her sister wondered how his kind got to be endangered.

Axle switched his form back to that of a human. He stood up, walked over to a pillar and leaned against it. **"See from where both me and Strider are from, it not much different from it is here. Always someone hunting something in order to protect or achieve what they want,"** the man said as he started to slid down the pillar. **"Plus I'm older than what ever hybrids was here."  
**  
**"How old?"** asked Danielle curiously.

Then Strider on the other hand did as jumped to his feet and said something quietly to his friend that the sisters were unable to make out. The blonde picked up his sword and looked off to the empty space as he asked, **"Is this place one hundred percent sealed from the outside world? Because if it not, we are about to get an uninvited guest here shortly."** Axle was seen picking up both his swords and placing the straps over his shoulders. The wary brunette let out a low deep growl. **"Find somewhere to hide, and try and reach the magi dragon, as Axle calls it, your aunt. Stay hidden no matter what you hear,"** Strider said to the sisters as he grab the other three flares and lit one and throw it as far as he could down the stone hallway. The flare was instantly put out with one swing of a sharp sword, one that look like Cloud's swords, from around a distant pillar.

Scared, the sisters said, **"Okay, we will!"** Then the hatchlings ran away through the hallway to get to the king's chamber for safety.

Danielle, being the faster dragon, had the distance gap widen between herself and her sister. **"Swow down, Danielle. I cun catch up,**" said Kylie, not wanting to be alone and left behind to the bad guy that was in the castle.

The whiptail slowed down a bit to let her sister catch up. Then she telepathically called her aunt, _'Aunt Atlas, there's a bad guy in the castle! Help us!'_

* * *

After grabbing up the cereal boxes, chips, and pastry snacks from three aisles, Atlas got a distress call from Danielle. The magi's eyes went wide in alarm and worry for her nieces. _'Hang on, Danielle, I'm coming!'_ she cried. The magi warped back into the main hall of the castle with foods and saw a shocking sight. Dead human bodies were laying on the floor, many of which had been crushed beneath the six fallen pillars supporting roof. Close nearby were the bodies of Strider and Marc bleeding from their sword wounds. Apparently, they had impaled each other as the intruder's sword was painted red with Strider's blood and the blonde had his blade stabbed through his foe. Marc and the many men he brought as well piqued her curiosity the most. **"What the hell? How did he and them get inside?"** the magi questioned on as to how the slayers got her after she had blocked the doors. There was no way they would have gotten in that easily. She would have to worry about that later, because right now the castle was falling apart and she needed to get Axle and her family out of here, if they were still alive. Atlas contacted her niece first to check if she was still alright. _'Danielle, tell me you're alive. Where are you and Kylie at now?!' _she asked.

The whiptail answered, _'We're running away from the bad guy!'_

Atlas felt a bit glad that the hatchlings were doing the smart thing by fleeing from danger. _'That's good, Danielle. Just get to a safe place like the library or the chambers and I'll meet you there. Whatever you do, don't run into corners or dead ends, alright?'_ she told her.

_'Okay, Aunt Atlas.'_ There was a brief pause before the magi heard her niece's next telepathic message, which sounded dire. _'Aunt Atlas, we got more bad guys chasing us! HELP!'_

**"What?!"** the dragoness cried out in panic of the hacthlings being in danger. She had been hoping the dead humans were the only bad guys in the castle, but now it turned out there was more of them. _'I'm coming, Danielle! Just give me a picture of where you're at now,'_ she told her. The image of the hallway appeared in the magi's mind. _'Okay, got it, I'm on my way.'_ Atlas went over to Strider's body and teleported herself and him. She felt she needed to bring him along, so that Axle can see for himself that his buddy was dead.

* * *

The sisters had turned corner into another hallway. Up ahead at the end would be the stairs that would lead upstairs into the next floor. Kylie's slow speed had annoyed Danielle, because the whiptail wanted to run as fast as she can and make it to a safe place in time. **"Kylie, why are you so swow?"** she whined.

**"I dun know!"** the balloon hatchling cried. **"I'm not as fast as yew, okay."** She hadn't mean to scream at her sister, but it was just that the threat of the danger was making her frightful. Suddenly, they heard footsteps behind them and saw eight men coming at them.

Danielle's eyes went wide with fear and she screamed, **"Bad guys!"** She started to ran full speed, leaving her sister behind as she telepathically called her aunt.

Kylie saw her sister abandoning her and had her hand reached to her as she cried, **"Danielle, dun weave me!"** Luckily, Axle had came to fight and kill off some of the bad men. He pulled both his swords over his shoulder and threw it at the two closest to him, running them though their chests. He did not even pick up his swords as he ran by the bodies, at a full sprint. The other six notices they were not alone in this chase, as two broke off from the group and went to stop the shape-shifter.

**"Get out of my way!"** Axle yelled at the two as grabbed the two that broke off from the group. He grabbed their heads and slammed them into the stone floor, crushing their skulls. He grabbed two knifes that hit the floor and throw them at the next two closest, missing completely this time as the knifes sailed though the air and stick into a wooden pillar that was not far ahead of Kylie. Then the shape-shifter finally caught up with the remainders of the group. He caught them by full surprise when he grabbed the two back; he snapped one neck and ran another though with his partner's sword. The other two turn their attention to Axle, but they had slow reaction as he grabbed them both and threw them into the ground hard. They lost their weapons as the cold blades slide across the ground. He pulled back his hand from one and throw the other down the hall way behind him, than he did the same with the other one. Just seconds later, rocks were heard falling from high places. Axle was than grabbed from behind and slammed into a wall by a big man. One of the men, that Axle had thrown back down the hall way, slammed him into the wall and went to punch him in the face and then into his stomach. Axle gasped for air when the man did that as the others went for their weapons. Then the shapeshifter fell to the stone floor. The same man went and kicked him in his side and then place his foot on Axle's back, which he pressed hard down to force the shapeshifter to stay on the ground. He took both his weapons and shoved them though Axle's back, causing him to scream in pain as the blood flowed from the fresh wounds and out the corner of his mouth. Within moments, the shape-shifter passed out from blood loss.

The balloon hatchling kept running and running. But fortunately, one of the men had caught up and grabbed her. Kylie let out a terrified scream. **"Gotcha!"** said the man. He raised his dagger up and then brought it down at the hatchling's throat. It missed! Kylie had suddenly disappeared and was replaced by clouds of purple smoke. The dagger had struck the man on his empty palm. He let out a groan of pain and pulled the dagger out.

Soon he heard an angry voice, **"Get your hands off my niece, you filthy bastard!"** Then he was struck with an ice spear to his chest and killed. Atlas had a look of fury on her face. How dare he tried to harm Kylie. The aunt would not put up with murderers inside her castle or around her family. The balloon hatchling hugged onto her aunt, shaking and eyes shut tight. She was still scared from nearly getting killed. Atlas turned to the last man, who was near Axle's bleeding body. She roared loudly and cast a fire beam at him. The man screamed loudly in agony as he was burned. He ran around with his body on fire in constant pain. The magi focused on Axle and teleported him to her group, next to Strider. Atlas looked around for Danielle and called, **"Danielle, where are you?"** No response, so she tried again. **"Danielle?"**

**"I'm here, Aunt Atwas!"** the whiptail said as she came running over to them.

**"Good, now we're all here. Let's get the hell out of this place before it comes crashing down on us,"** the magi said. There was no need to kill the last man, because the Castle of Fire will come crumbling down on him. Atlas teleported everyone out of the castle and over to the ruined city. She knew a white dragon who could help out Axle.

* * *

Atlas laid Strider and Axle under the shade of the broken down retail store's interior. The sisters looked worriedly at them. **"Aunt Atlas, do you think dat dhey'll be okay?"** asked Danielle.

The magi said in a grim, **"I don't know, Danielle. I don't know. But let's hope they do. I can only hope that they'll be alright once we bring that white dragon here." **She didn't want to tell them that Strider was dead, because then they're going to think that their parents being among the stars was a lie.

Kylie, who was still recovering from the fright of nearly getting murdered, looked up at her aunt and pointed accusingly at her sister. She thought now would be a good time to tattle tale and said, **"Aunt Atwas, Danielle weft me behind."**

**"What?"** the magi asked in a shocked tone. She turned to the whiptail and eyed her judgingly as she asked, **"Danielle, is this true?"** She didn't like her niece being selfish enough to leave a close blood relative behind like that.

Danielle shrunk back out of fear that she could get punished. She replied in her own defense, **"I-I didn't wan the humans to get me. Dhey were coming and I had to wun away."  
**  
Atlas scolded her, **"Danielle! I know it's important to be safe, but your sister's safety is also important! You should have brought her with you. I expected better of you!"**

**"She was swowing me down!" **the whiptail cried. **"The humans were fast and getting closer."**

**"Closer, huh?"** the aunt asked. She was starting to understand her niece's situation a bit. It sounded like Kylie wasn't fast enough to outrun the assassins. Calming down some, Atlas said, **"I guess we're going to have to work on y'all's speed."** She thought about putting the hatchlings through some training exercises for fleeing, so that they can better escape successfully without having to sacrifice each other. But that would have to come later.

_Klang!_ They heard the drop of metal hitting the ground and making a ringing sound. The Firestars turned their heads to look over at Axle, who has just woken up after removing the bloodied daggers. **"Hey Axle's alive,"** Kylie said. The shape-shifter let out a pained groan before he used his magic to heal all his wound slowly.

Atlas asked the dragon-human, **"So how are you putting up, Axle?"** No answer was received as Axle turned to look at his fallen companion sadly and spoke three words in an unknown language before he fainted. A tear escaped from his right eye and slide down his cheek before hit the ground below. Feeling pity and sympathy for the boy, Atlas said, **"Poor Axle, I better help them fast."** She knew how much losing a loved one hurts and now the man was going through the same thing, too. Picturing the white dragon from the other day, Atlas form a telepathic communication with him, _'Hey you, remember me? I'm that magi you helped healed two nights ago.'_

The dragon replied, _'Oh yes, I know you. You're the one with the human boy. What happened? Did you get yourself into another fight protecting him?'_

_'No,'_ she told him. _'But I'm with a dragon who can turn human. He and his friend got attacked by bad humans who broke into my castle and now one is dead and the other one is knocked out. So I need you to get here right now.'_

The healer dragon told her, _'Alright, just give me an image of where you're at and I'll try to be there as soon as possible.'_

_'Alright, hang on.'_ The magi took off into the air and studied the building's detail from below. She sent that mental image to him.

_'Okay, I see. Wait for me, I'm on my way,'_ he said.

The telepathic line ended and Atlas looked over at Axle. **"Hang in there, pal. Help is on the way,"** she said. The hatchlings went over to Strider and Axle to check on them. Danielle sniffed the swordsman for a second before she nudged his face to see if he would get up. Kylie looked over at Axle. Would he and Strider go up into the stars just like her parents did?

* * *

About an hour later, the white dragon finally came and landed at the broken building. Atlas walked up to him and said, **"Finally, you're here. I was wondering if it would take you a long time to find this place."**

The white dragon made small smile and said, **"Well I admit, I did have trouble searching for where you're at. But fate was glad enough to help me out."** He looked around for the patients until he saw Strider and Axle. **"I take it that it must be one of them you want me to heal?"** he asked, unsure of who to work his magic on since the shape-shifter wasn't in dragon form.

**"Yes!"** Atlas replied. **"Just go for the black-haired the one. The blonde guy is..."** She paused as she wondered how to continue the conversation. Within moments she found the right words and said, **"You know."**

The white dragon knew what she meant and said, **"Okay, I'll get to it."** He went to check on Axle to see what the problem was, but his body seems to be unharmed. He used healing magic on him anyway just in case. After he was done, he went over to Atlas and said, **"Well he's all fixed now... I think."**

The magi looked over at the brunette for a second before she said to the white, **"Alright, you can go. Thanks for your help again."**

The white dragon said, **"No problem. I hope the next time you need help will be better than this one."** Then he flew out of the building.

But before he could fly out of the building, the sisters got disappointed with how the white only healed Axle and left out Strider. Danielle complained, **"Hey, how come you onwy healed Axle and not Stwider?"**

**"Yeah! How come?" **Kylie asked.

The white dragon shook head and answered regretfully, **"Because young ones, your human friend is dead. I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do. My magic can't bring back the dead."**

**"Dead?!"** both sisters cried out in surprise.

Danielle turned her head to look up at her aunt and asked, **"Is Stwider dead?"  
**  
Atlas gritted her teeth; she worried about her nieces finding out the truth and was annoyed at the white dragon for bringing it up. To debunk this suspicion, the magi told her nieces, **"No, he's not. The white dragon's just worrying too much. Strider's gone up into the stars. You can all talk to him tonight if you want to."**

Thankfully, the sisters bought that lie without thinking and said, **"Okay."**

**"Anyway, you two go and play over there,"** Atlas said, pointing to the corner where the fallen debris and shoes racks were. **"I'll take Stwider somewhere else."** The sisters ran off to play, while the magi picked up Strider's body and took him outside next to the side of the building.

The white dragon had been confused by how the magi lied to the hatchlings and followed after her.**"Now hold on a minute here. Why did you lie to these hatchlings like that? He was clearly dead,"** he asked.

Atlas answered with a frown, **"Because my nieces' parents died and I didn't want them getting all sad to know that their parents are gone forever. That's why I lied."  
**  
The white dragon felt sympathy for the family's tragic past and understood the magi's reason. **"Oh I see now. Sorry for your loss. Take care now,"** he said before flying away for good. The magi turned her attention back to Strider's body and then she used her earth magic to tear apart the asphalt and dirt to create a hole. She dropped the body down in that hole and covered it back up with the soil. She finished off the burial by burning the wall with her fire magic. She waited for the heat to sink into the wall, before she dispelled the flames to leave black marks in the form of the words in draconic language: "Here lies Strider." The magi flew back into the building and laid beside Axle, guarding him until he wakes up.

* * *

Here's a little fun fact about Strider; his name used to be Cloud in the RP, but draco8967 decided to change his name to Strider, so that he won't get sued by Square Enix when he publishes his prequel story about Axle. Next chapter, we're going back to Aeolus's story and see what he and Zeditha does in another village raid.

Atlas, Danielle, and Kylie (c) me  
Strider, Axle, and Marc (c) draco8967


	19. Free the Slaves!

**Chapter 18: Free the Slaves!**

A while later, the Vulture Horde found a trio of albino dragonesses eating leaves from the trees. Aeolus went up to them and said, **"Hello there, are you the three albinos that your friend told me about? He said that you were willing to join the Vulture horde."**

The albino dragonesses stopped eating as they turned their head to look at him. One of them swallowed her food and said, **"That's us alright. I'm Fakoo and these are my sisters, Albina and Belina. We want to squash those humans and make them regret trying to hunt us down."**

The other albino said, **"Yeah, yesterday they caught Ursula and took him over to their settlement. They're making him a slave again."**

Zeditha flew over to the albinos and landed on a nearby branch. **"Hello,"** she greeted.

Belina the youngest albino looked at the dragonet and greeted, **"Why hello there, young one. It's nice to meet you."**

Aeolus wasn't surprised at all that the humans would go back to using slavery. After all, it was in their blood to kill, take, and enslave. **"So do you know where this village is that's keeping your friend and maybe some others held as slaves?"** he asked.

**"Yes we do,"** said Fakoo. **"Follow us, we'll show you the way."** The horde took off over the woods following after the albinos to the human village. After a while, they landed on ground that was of higher elevation, so that they could see the village below. **"There, that's where they're keeping Ursula. We tried to go in there ourselves, but there were too many humans to fight off."**

Aeolus inquired, **"How did they fight?"**

Fakoo answered, **"Well, they were all armed with those metal sticks they swung at us. They were sharp like claws. And some of them also fired off those flying slimmer sticks with piercing tips at us."** From what this dragoness had said, it sounded like she was speaking of swords and arrows.

Zeditha suddenly cut into the conversation and suggested, **"We should get the best fliers to fly high, higher than the claws can reach. They should catch the flying sticks until the humans have none left, and then it should be easy to avoid the claws."** Then she seemed surprised and covered her face with a wing. Behind the translucent membrane, she added more quietly, **"Just a suggestion, of course, I'm not the leader..."**

The horde leader analyzed her plan quickly and carefully to know if it would work. **"Your suggestion sounds like a good idea, Zeditha. Of course, we can make it more effective by using the magic crystal to create a barrier against the arrows or the gray dragons blow them back down,"** he said to her.

The dragonet nodded in relaxation and asked, **"That sounds like a good plan. Shall we do that then?"**

**"Yes,"** the disaster dragon replied. **"But first we need to plan out our strategy for the village's destruction. Since there are slaves inside that place, I won't be able to cast my tornado without putting their lives in danger. So we'll have to start our first strike a different way."** He looked to the albino dragonesses and asked, "**You three, what are your powers?"**

Fakoo said, "**Well the only thing we can do is breathe fire and that's about it."**

Aeolus told them, **"Okay then, you shall stay up with the horde until I give the order for us to go down there."** Then he explained the rest of his plan, **"So anyway, Lutarn and Stormy will cover the sky with thick clouds before we move in and rain down our fireballs and spells at the humans. Zylanon and the black ghost dragons will sneak into the village and free all the slaves."** Taking into consideration of the crossfire involved, he cautioned, **"They should also warn us beforehand when coming out of the buildings with slaves, so that we don't hit them at the places they're coming from. Everyone understand?"**

**"Yes sir!"** the dragons responded.

**"Good, now let's do this!"** The horde and the albinos flew off with Tavurth carrying Orion and they all headed to the village. Pretty soon, the humans had seen them approaching and immediately knew of the impending danger that was about to happen. Screams filled the air as people raced into their tents and cabins, while their fighters got themselves armed with weapons. As soon as the humans were ready, they fired off their arrows at the horde. **"Eitri, now!"** Aeolus roared. The night magic cast a magic shield beneath the horde to block off the arrows that bounced off and fell back down to the ground. **"Eitri, release the barrier. Everyone fire!"** The barrier disappeared and the dragons blew down fireballs and lightning bolts. Tavurth put Orion on the ground, so that the magma dragon can breathe a wide pool of lava onto the ground to prevent people from trying to escape their deaths.

Zylanon and the black ghost couple descended to the ground outside the village entrance. They touched land and the black ghosts made their bodies dematerialize so that they were able to travel through solid objects such as walls and human weaponry. The shadow dragon was about to melt down into the ground to become an animated shadow, when Zeditha came up next to him and asked, **"Hello; mind if I join you?"**

Zylanon wondered why this dragonet would come down to be with the infantry team and asked, **"Didn't Aeolus say for you to be with the offensive team?"**

Zeditha shook her head. **"Aeolus didn't tell me to go on either team,"** she said. **"I just decided that I'm a useless range attacker; I'd join this group."**

**"I see,"** said the shadow dragon nonchalantly. He looked away and continued speaking, **"First you can't use magic and now you can't fire from a distance. What kind of dragon did Aeolus recruit if she's only good for her speed?"** The dragonet shrugged in response. After a brief pause, he looked back at her and said, **"Fine, you may join this group. Let's see how well you do in this raid. Maybe you might prove that you're not a dud."**

**"I can be unnoticed when I want to be,"** Zeditha said. **"So yeah, let's see how I do."**

Zylanon watched her speed ahead of him inside the village as she was eager to prove herself. "**Let's see how you do, indeed,"** said the shadow dragon. He melted into his shadow form and crawled along the ground as he went into the village. The humans saw the black ghost dragons and became quite alarmed as screams filled the air. Those who couldn't fight fled in panic for their lives; while those who can charged at the couple and swung their swords at them. However, because the black ghosts were dematerialized, the swords became non-effective as the blade passed through air instead. The pair didn't bother to attack as they would need to materialize in order to do the humans any harm. So the black ghosts ignored the humans carried on to the chained slaves that were held in their posts.

The humans were surprised to see that their weapons did nothing to them and stopped attacking altogether. **"What? But how?"** one man asked. Aeolus's group quickly took advantage of their distraction and rained down fireballs to kill them.

The black ghosts went through the wall of a slave shed and found hatchlings and pygmies inside in small cages with inadequate spacing. A slaver was looking at the two intruders with overwhelming fear on his face as his shaking hand dropped the whip he was holding. Next to him was a crimson pygmy tied to a post. It looked like he had just been flogged as his red scales were covered with fresh scars. The two mates began to look at the man with hatred burning in their eyes. They immediately materialized and walked towards the man as they bared their teeth and growled. The slaver backed away from the hostile threats before him and began pleading for his life, **"Now now, I'm sorry. I mean I didn't want to whip him. He was being bad and provoked me. He was a naughty boy and he-"**

**"He's lying!"** shouted the crimson flare in his raspy voice. **"He whipped just so he can have some fun."** The black ghosts were disgusted with the slaver's sadism and lie.

The slaver began to sweat and feel sick to his stomach. In more desperate attempt to avoid death, he cried, **"No, no, no, no, no, no! He's the one lying. Yeah he is!"**

But his words fell on deaf ears as the horde members refused to believe him. Eatorn roared, **"Enough of your lies, coward! It's time for you to die!"** He lunged his head forward and the man screamed before he got clamped down on by sharp jaws. The black ghost began to chew and crush every bone in the slaver's body and tear his flesh and clothes. After a good meal eaten, he spat out the torn clothes as they were indigestible. Looking around at the slaves, Eatorn said, **"Alright everyone, he's finally gone! Now let's get you all out of here."**

The slaves cheered out in happiness. The black ghosts burned the ropes that tied the pygmy and broke open the cages to let the slaves out. The slaves followed Zeditha towards the door that would lead them all to freedom. One of the humans saw the slaves trying to escape and pointed at them. **"Stop them!"** he told the men.

Another man shot down the command and reasoned, **"No! We need all the men here to defend this camp from the dragons. We'll hunt them down later. For now, we kill those blasted scalies."** Then Aeolus's lightning breath electrocuted him and let the toasted man drop stiff and dead.

That got the other guy back on his toes and back into action immediately. He fired off an arrow and it shot Drakor on his chest. The ember let out a pained roar as the flapping of his wing started to get slower and his altitude started to decrease. Aeolus saw what was happening to his fellow horde member and told the night magi,** "Eitri, send Drakor out of the battle immediately."** The spellcaster used his teleportation magic to warp the ember dragon out of the scene.

Zylanon slithered on his way to the next slave tent. People who saw his shadow form on the ground and on the walls ran away from the beast that they thought might attack them. The shadow dragon did his best to avoid the light from the flames of his comrades by taking cover behind solid objects. Because if the bright light hits him, then he would automatically revert back to his normal dragon form. The coast was clear after the horde exterminated a group of warriors, thus enabling Zylanon to slither by. He went to the slave tent and changed back into dragon form. He took the key that was sitting on the table and opened up the cages to let the pygmy slaves out. **"Go now!"** he told them. The little dragons took off into the air and flew off into freedom.

As the slaves had escaped, Aeolus saw the refugees trying to escape out of the village. **"Vulture horde, I see humans trying to flee for their lives. Do not let them escape! Kill them before they leave!"** he ordered. The gray dragons sent lightning bolts down from the dark clouds at the escape routes. The sudden strikes startled and terrified the humans more as they turned and tried to get around the fires caused by the bolts. Some of them found that they were blocked by a river of lava right in front of them. With over half of the refugee soldiers dead, the horde started to attack civilians as well. Aeolus breathed down lightning at the humans, both civilian and warrior alike. Bodies flashed and showed their skeletons before they dropped dead in a burnt state with hairs sticking up. The other dragons assaulted the refugees with their own attacks as well.

After the disaster dragon zapped a man dead, Zeditha flew over to Aeolus and shouted at him, **"Stop this! How can you murder innocent children?! And if you do, how are you any better than the soldiers who killed our brethren?"** Her tail lashed angrily as she continued, **"Don't all creatures deserve their lives?"**

The horde leader looked down at her and growled with disdain,** "The humans have lost their right to live after countless of atrocities committed against us for centuries. Besides, they're not trustworthy enough to keep around; not after we saw that they're still holding onto slavery. If we were to leave them unchecked, then it'll be a matter of time before they find new ways to work around the Spell and turn us all back into slaves. That's why they all need to die!"** He breathed another breath of lightning at the three people below him and killed them.

The dragonet shook her head and said,** "I was raised deep in a forest, away from the humans' influence. My parents taught me about the humans as **_**equals.**_** Cruel, heartless equals at times, but they still have the same feelings as we do. If I, raised to believe that humans are equal, save the humans when others would kill them; then a human child, taught that slavery was wrong, would stand and fight against any who said otherwise."** She worked her wings into a fury and hovered now a large distance from the ground. Her eyes blazed with anger and she continued, **"They attack from self-defense. They enslaved us because they thought we were monsters, and then because it was the norm. We attack from self-defense. We kill them because they enslaved us, and then we will kill because it is the norm."** She paused for effect before yelling, **"I do not want to be part of this killing. We are no better than the humans - in fact, we are worse! At least we were alive!"**

Aeolus thought that the idea that there were good humans was ludicrous. 99% of the world supported slavery and Aeolus had no time to go around looking for the rare good eggs among the bad ones. Plus there were already children that were taught to believe that dragons were beneath them. And because of the Spell revolution and the fact that there were dragons killing humans, they would be more likely to resist changing their views. If these children were spared, what would stop them from growing up to be dragon slayers to avenge their lost friends? The disaster dragon growled, **"Fine, if you will not help us to eliminate the humans, then feel free to leave the horde."** Besides, he can always find a more useful dragon who would be willing to put all of his/her abilities to use.

**"If you won't stop killing the innocent,"** Zeditha said as she stood firm. **"I'll help to break the Spell myself! It's better to have slavers rule the planet than ****_RUTHLESS MURDERERS!_****"** she screamed the last words before she ran back into the crowd of humans.

The dragonet's outrageous words had created anger in Aeolus. As Zeditha ran towards a human mother holding a baby and offered to carry it, the horde leader snarled, **"Insolent hatchling! You would rather have us live in suffering than in a secure and liberated world?! You're a fool to say something like this and that makes you no better than these humans and us."**

The mother half-hesitantly let Zeditha take the child in her teeth. The dragonet ran back out of the crown and over to a small hill. Setting down the baby, she cried, **"The humans enslaved us only because they thought we were mindless, ruthless murderers! They lock up their own kind who are murderers! It is for the good of the many! And if dragons are to wipe out their race, with no consideration between the evil few and the innocent, if caught in tradition, many; then I, horde leader, do not wish to be a dragon. I will not be known as a ruthless murderer!"**

Aeolus refused to listen to such bleeding heart rants. **"I'm afraid that's where you're wrong. The real reason the humans enslaved us was because they needed our powers to do all the grueling work for them. In their society where murderers are imprisoned and killed and dangerous pets put down, why would the humans need murderers to work for them, knowing that they would turn on their masters at any time? Dragons who tried to attack their slavers were often put down. Death also claims the lives of wild dragons that the humans hunt for resourceful hides and body parts the humans need to turn into something for their convenience,"** he bluntly explained to her.

Then he went to downplay the innocence of humanity,** "And how dare you downplay the humans' atrocious nature as simple ignorance when they have a violent history that not only affects dragons, but themselves as well. They go into wars with each other over greed and religious, they would restrict the rights of certain groups that were different than them and persecute them, they would consume too many resources and leave none for the rest as the pollute the planet further and further, they would steal from one another, and they would commit all other kinds of horrific acts. It is forever in their blood and it'll never go away. We, dragons, kill them for the one righteous reason: to keep our kind and the planet safe from them. So if you wish to be a blood traitor, then know that this horde will not back down from this mission without a fight!"** Electric bolts ran course around his bared teeth as he growled.

After searching the rest of the camp, Zylanon and the black ghost dragons found no other batch of slaves to set free. The shadow dragon spoke telepathically to the leader, _'Aeolus, it looks like we've set all the slaves free. I see no one else in this village.'_

_'Very well then, take flight and rejoin us in the air,'_ the disaster dragon ordered them. Zylanon crawled into the sunlight and reverted back to his normal form. The black ghost couple materialized and flew off with the shadow dragon. Aeolus looked to the other aerial dragons and told them the next plan,** "Vulture horde, the liberation is now complete! I shall now use my earthquake power to stun the humans. That's also when you'll finish them off for good."** He relayed the message to the Orion and told him to gather the hatchlings and those who haven't been healed yet off the ground. As the magma dragon went to do his job, Aeolus landed on the large clearing and slammed his paw down hard on the ground to cause an earthquake. The ground shook forcefully with power and the fleeing humans stumbled, tripped, and fell over. Sheds and tents broke down and fell apart as well. The horde went to finish off the rest of the refugees with their breaths and spells. The dying screams of Mankind filled the air as each and every person was slaughtered without discrimination.

Zeditha clutched the baby and flew off.** "I am no longer a member of your Horde,"** she said, flinging the words over her shoulder. **"But I will be a dragon; I will be a GOOD dragon. I will be better than the humans; not the same as them. I knew they were ruthless... but it is a learned behavior. We can teach them otherwise."** She looked at the child in her claws and continued, **"Starting with this little one."** Looking back up, the dragonet flapped her wings faster and accelerated back towards the woods.

Aeolus huffed through a closed mouth as good riddance to having this naive fool out of the horde. Eitri, having watched Zeditha go, flew up to him and asked, **"Aeolus, that dragonet is escaping with the human child. Shall I pursue her?"**

Even though the dragonet was faster than the night magi, the disaster dragon knew that the long range spells of Eitri's would make short work of Zeditha and allow him to kill the infant. Plus, he can teleport to her and catch up. Aeolus replied, **"Yes, and hurry! I need that baby to die."**

**"Yes sir!"** Eitri responded while going off ahead right now to pursue Zeditha.

A short time later, all the humans were slaughtered and the camp was roasted down to ashes as usual with every other destroyed settlements. The albino sisters went over to their crimson pygmy friend and rejoiced his safe return. One of them licked his face affectionately and the pygmy smiled in return. The slaves have been healed and Hewey lead them over to Aeolus, who was standing next to the corpses. **"My fellow dragons, you now free once again from the humans' barbaric holds on you. I'm sure all of you are in need of some decent food to fatten yourself with. So we give you your deceased tormentor to feast on,"** he spoke. He moved out of the way let the former slaves have their meal. The starving dragons tore off the clothes to get to the flesh and eat of the meals. Some of them paused first to looked at the dead masters as they remembered all the pain that these humans had caused them with bitterness and anger. The disaster dragon waited for them to finish eating, so that he can invite some of them into the horde. He then saw Eitri flying back to him and asked, **"Did you kill the baby?"**

**"I didn't,"** the night magi answered. **"I almost had Zeditha, but then she suddenly disappeared as if she teleported somewhere else."** He lowered his head a little and apologized, **"I'm sorry, Aeolus."**

**"It's alright. We'll get them next time,"** said the disaster dragon. Either they'll kill the baby for good or someone else would, if Zeditha ran into another dragon wasn't keen on humans. He sent a telepathic message to the dragonet threatening her, _'Zeditha, your little human may live for now. But next time we find you, I promise you that it will surely die.'_ No response was heard; perhaps the dragonet didn't want to respond or that she had put up a mind barrier to block telepathic messages. A half an hour later, the slaves were done eating and felt satisfied with the delicious meal. Aeolus looked to each and every slave and observed their sizes, **"I see that most of you are pygmies and hatchlings. How pitiful that the humans have to resort to enslaving the small to make them do their dirty work."**

**"I know, right?"** said one of the pygmies who rolled his eyes at mankind's ploy.

Another one spoke sarcastically, **"No surprise there."**

**"Indeed,"** agreed Aeolus with a nod at him. He looked back at the rest of the slaves and spoke, **"Which is why we invite you, those who are old enough to fight, to join our horde and eliminate the humans who may have others such as yourselves under their hold. We must not let them continue their heinous acts as long as they live. For as long as one human lives, no one will be safe." **He didn't need to ask for those with exceptional powers as he knew that all the slaves here were of those kind of breeds with special abilities. Plus, he needed the small for spy work and scouting.

The crimson flare pygmy flew over to the disaster dragon and said, **"Hey Aeolus, right? I want to join your horde."**

A female pink pygmy with petal-like wings piped in, **"So do I!"**

A male leaf pygmy, who looked like an older version of Leafwing, volunteered as well, **"If me doing something will help prevent others like myself from going through the same thing as us, then count me in."**

More slaves joined in as well before a wasp pygmy looked at the hatchlings and asked in concern, **"Hey Aeolus, what are going to do about the hatchlings? We can't leave them alone out in the woods."  
**  
But some of the male hatchlings looked determined and brave as they thought that the war was as easy as they believed. **"Don't worry, we can fight!" **said one of them.

The other hatchlings piped, **"Yeah!"**

The horde turned them down, **"No, you're not strong enough to take down the humans. We only need adults in the Vulture horde. So instead, you'll all be taken back to your families."** Young lives weren't just too precious and valuable to be wasted as soldiers in the war; hatchlings were also too weak and mentally immature to do a lot of critical thinking necessary to make wise decisions in battles. That is why Aeolus didn't want them in his horde.

The hatchlings groaned in disappointments and said, **"Aww, that's not fair!"**

A green hatchling kicked the dirt and said, **"I wanted to fight..."**

Bam went over to the young dragons and with a smile said, **"Hey cheer up, maybe if the war lasts long enough, one day you'll be grown-ups and get to join in."**

Hope was renewed and the hatchlings said to Bam, **"Really? I can't wait until I grow up!"**

**"I'll be an adult in three years!"** another hatchling said with an enthusiastic gleam in his eyes.

The navy blue giggled heartily and said to them, **"That's good, kiddo! For now, you guys can just defend your families from the evil humans. Don't let anything happen to them, alright?"**

**"Okay!"** the hatchlings promised.

The horde leader was grateful to his cousin for helping to dissuade the hatchlings out of recruitment. He resumed his speech, **"So anyway, if anyone wants to join the Vulture horde, please remain here. Everyone else who's not interested please leave. You can take any orphans among the hatchlings that you want to raise. We will take the rest of the young back to their families and find dragons who will raise the other orphans."** The uninterested slaves left and took all the few orphans with them. The disaster dragon looked to the night magi and told him, **"Eitri, I know you and Zylanon should be going back home to get some sleep. But first I need you to warp all these hatchlings here back to their families."**

The night magi smiled and said, **"It's alright, sir. I can wait until the job is done.** **I mean I know their parents are worried sick about them.** **So they'll be glad when they have their sons and daughters back."**Eitri was happy to try and help reunite the hatchlings with their parents.

**"I'm glad you're willing to get this done,"** said Aeolus, grateful with Eitri's understanding of the situation. **"Now start returning them all."**

**"Got it!"** the night magi obliged.

Aeolus looked to the hatchlings and instructed them, **"Hatchlings, I need you to contact your parents and have them show you where they're living now. And then show this night magi where they are, so he can take you back to them."** The hatchlings used their telepathy to ask for their parents' locations. Then they looked at Eitri, who then felt overwhelmed by the mass images sent at him.

The night magi put up a mental barrier to block out the incoming telepathy and said, **"Whoa hatchlings, whoa! I don't need all these places coming to me at once."** Then he suggested an idea, **"How about I do one of you guys at a time, so it'll be easier for me."** So he went to one hatchling and ask them for their parent's places for he sent him over there. He did the same thing for each hatchlings until all of them were gone. The night magi got words of their thanks sent to him, making him feel flattered.

Aeolus was satisfied to see the job done, so he gave the nocturnal dragons permission to return home. Eitri warped himself and Zylanon back to Chief Doubloon's village. The disaster dragon looked at the former slaves and said, **"Right, so now that our little job is done. I need to know which of you dragons have abilities outside your breeds, so I can put you in the best positions when we go on our future raids."  
**  
Two dark-scaled leaf pygmies stepped forward and told him, **"We have night vision, sir."**

The disaster dragon smiled and replied, **"That is very nice. We could use some spies to explore the human camps at night."  
**  
Then a spring dragon came up and said, **"I have a special pollen that can soothe our comrades when they need to be relaxed."  
**  
Aeolus didn't seem impressed with the spring's ability to soothe others, but maybe perhaps it would be useful someday. **"Okay then, any others?"** he asked.

A female spring dragon told him, **"My son and I are descended from wind dragons, so we have the ability to blow sharp petals and pollen in a very long distance."**

**"That's really great,"** the horde leader replied, finding how useful their abilities would be. Spring dragons could make their pollen toxic, tranquilizing, or soothing at will. With the long distance ability, the springs will be much safer from human harm. Looking around, the leader asked, **"Anyone else?"** When no reply came, Aeolus said,** "Alright then, I guess that's everyone. It's good to see that such unique breeds are contributing their valuable powers to the group. But with some training, we can make you all much more valuable soldiers. We, experienced horde members, teach you how the humans now fight and what we do to survive. So listen well and carefully."** The disaster dragon started teaching the slaves the humans' weak points where they are easily killed, how they ambush their foes, how they shoot with bows, and how they fight with close-range weapons.

* * *

**Author's Note:** You can run away all you want, Zeditha, but you can't hide forever! Next chapter, we're going to see what Kathia and Jason are up to.

Fakoo, Albina, Belina, and Ursula (c) me  
Mia (the baby) (c) Zeditha


	20. The Plan for a Human-only City

**Author's Note:** I just uploaded two chapters in one day, guys. Go check out chapter 18 first before you read this chapter.

* * *

**Chapter 19: The Plan for a Human-only City  
**

Once afternoon had came, Kathia got ready to leave the house. She said goodbye to Mrs. Merryweather and went outside the mansion with her spellbook. She rode her horse to go meet Jason at the backlot, where they had practiced archery. She couldn't wait to show him what she learned yesterday. After getting there first, the girl tied the reins to a pole and sat on the bench to read her spellbook. She was going to study and memorize the spells she used until Jason got here. Any new spells she find, she cast them only once so that she doesn't drain too much of her magic energy before the showoff.

After a little while, Kathia became so deep into her spellbook that she jumped a little when a black man's voice startled her. **"So ready to blow my mind?"** he asked. The girl put the book down as Jason walked up to her and set down his quiver of arrows and bow.

**"Yes, I am,"** the girl replied eagerly to show off her spells.

As the man began to set the targets around the lot, he conveyed, **"I made some targets. If you don't mind I'm gonna to start. Something tells me there won't be much left of these little guys when you're done with them."**

**"Oh trust me, there won't be,"** Kathia said, confident that she was going to destroy these targets with her magic spells.

Collecting his bow and quiver again, Jason took a spot in the middle of the lot. He took a calming breath or two and got to it. He drew his first arrow nice and slow, getting a feel for the motion and knocked it to the bow. The man checked to see that Kathia was watching and then with a sharp movement raised the bow drew back and let fly his first shot. It slammed dead center in the first target. He didn't wait or celebrate; Jason turned completely around and let another arrow fly at another target held up off the ground. It landed a little right of center, but he didn't let that get him down. The man moved on through the targets which had been arranged around the lot in a rather random manner. All the arrows found their mark albeit with some a little above, below, left, or right of dead center. Until two targets remained, these two were shaped like rearing miniature dragons. Kathia could picture him killing some real-life dragons. Jason let loose one arrow and before that had found its mark he drew and left fly a second arrow at the second target. One dragon was knocked off its post followed almost immediately back the second each with an arrow embedded in its head.

Finished with his demonstration, Jason exhaled slowly. He went around collecting up the targets and his arrows. **"You can set them up however you like,"** he explained walking over to the girl and setting the targets at her feet. **"Not much of a caster myself, but I get that some spells are more about destructive power than accuracy,"** he said sitting down next to her with a triumphant grin. **"So what'd you think of my display?" **

**"It was pretty good! I bet you can poke a dragon's eye right in the center,"** Kathia commented smiling as she pointed at her own brown eye gesturing what she meant. Then she took up the targets and set them side by side. She backed away from the targets until she was a little near Jason for him to get a close look at how she would perform. **"Okay, I haven't learned all the spells in the book, but I will show you which ones I know. Let's start with the fireball,"** she told him. Concentrating and bringing up thermal magic energy, a small ember sitting at the palm of her hand grew bigger and round until it became a fireball. The girl flung it at one of the targets and the spells hit it, creating a small fireplace that would slowly spread its flames around it. Then she tried out her next spell, was her wind ball spell. She created a ball of air in her hands and cast it at the second target and watched it fall down after the impact. On the third target, she cast a lightning bolt at it zapped a space next to the center and left a black burnt mark there as well as chipped a small piece of the board. That all the projectile spells she could think of for now. **"Okay, my next spell doesn't shoot like the other spells, but it does hurt anyway. Watch this," **Kathia said to Jason. She walked up to the fourth target and blazed her hand with the burning touch spell. Her fiery hand touched the circular board and set it on fire. She looked at the man to see what he thought.

The man applauded the girl's performance. **"Very well done! More spells like those and we'll have those damned lizards fleeing for their lives,"** he said, smiling at her.

The girl replied with enthusiasm, **"Yeah! They'll regret setting their foot in this town!"**

Jason stood up and went to collect his surviving targets which consisted of the one that was missed. The target hit by the wind spell didn't seem like it could be salvaged. **"So what now? Grab something to eat or do we probe around for other people who aren't happy with the way things are?"** he asked.

Kathia suggested, **"I'd say we eat something first before we look for everyone. Hey, why don't get go to the Domininan restaurant? It's expensive, but they got really good food there. I'll pay for it with my daddy's credit card."** She knew there was a carnival in town, but it would be there tomorrow, so it was no harm done not going over there.

Jason said happily, **"Domininan eh? Sounds like a plan!"** The man packed the surviving targets into bag and slung it on. **"Alright, lead the way Lady Kathia! I'm practically starved,"** he exclaimed with a wide grin.

**"Right! Come on, let's go!"** said the girl. She and Jason on her horse and they rode all the way to the Dominican restaurant known as King Bistro. The redhead left the horse at the stalls and the two went inside the building. The interior was quite fancy with chandeliers at the ceiling, blue &amp; white striped walls with medieval icons, a small jar with a flower and silky white cloth coverings at each table, and classical music. The hunters went up to a young and handsome host, who grinned and greeted, **"Hello and welcome to King Bistro. Is this a party of two?"**

**"Yes it is,"** Kathia nodded and said.

After he grabbed up two menus and beckoned the hunters, **"Okay then, I'll get y'all seated. Right this way, guys."** Kathia and Jason followed the host to one of the round tables and took their seats there. The host gave them their menus and told them, **"Here you go, read and see which foods you want until the waiter gets here."**

Jason flashed him a grin and replied, **"Alright boy, we got ya!"** Then the hunters took their time to look at the drinks section of the menu.

After a few minutes, a curly-haired waitress approached the table with a small notepad and pen in hand. She smiled at the two and said, **"Hi, my name is Mary and I will be taking your orders. Now what would you all like to have for drink?"**

The girl, having decided on what she wanted, ordered, **"I would like a sweet tea."**

Mary wrote down Kathia's order on the notepad before turning to Jason and asking, **"And what would you like, sir?"**

**"Uh... just water please,"** he said, not really looking at the drink menu.

The waitress wrote down his order and said to them, **"I'll be right back with your drinks."** Then after she left, the man turned his attention to Kathia and asked nervously, "I'm not under dressed am I?"

The girl laughed answered, **"No you're not. I've seen a few people come to this place wearing casual clothes before. So it's no big deal dressing how you look."**

Jason smiled in relief and said, **"Oh that's a relief for a moment I was worried I might have to go out and by some new cloths before eating here."** Then they took up their menus to see what was on it.

The starters had a soup of the day, fresh fruit bowl, shrimp cocktail, and artichokes in Parmesan lemon sauce. The shrimp cocktail had the girl's mouth watering as she knew of its delicious taste. But the baked brie at the appetizer menu was kind of curious since it was usually savory foods and not sweets that were the appetizers. Putting the menu down a bit, Kathia asked, **"Hey Jason, want to start off with some appetizers?"**

**"Sure. Let's see what we have here..."** the man said, flipping back through the menu. **"The shrimp cocktail sounds nice. Let's have that,"** he said as he closed the menu with a snap. The sound was quite loud and Jason made a funny face that conveyed a silent **"Whoops."**

Kathia giggled and said, **"Okay, shrimp cocktail it is. That one is very tasty."**

Mary returned with the drinks and set them on the table. Taking up her notepad and pen, she asked, **"So, did you all want any appetizers first or do you just want to skip ahead over to lunch?"**

The redhead raised a finger and answered, **"We'll take the appetizers; we want to have shrimp cocktail."** The waitress wrote it down and went to the kitchen. Since it would take some time for Mary to get back with the food, the girl figured that it would be a good time to talk about their plans. **"So Jason, about that recruiting people for our cause. Where do you think we should start?"** she asked.

Jason though for a moment and spoke quietly, **"Well, the criminal underworld might be a start, but I'd rather not associate with kind of crowd if at all possible to be honest." **The started speaking quietly about this sensitive topic, so that they wouldn't be overhead by an eavesdropper.

**"I agree,"** Kathia said. Mafias and gangs probably wouldn't be a good idea as people like them tend to be vicious.

Then the man suggested, **"Hmm... maybe the forests. When the dragons broke free our people were scattered in the chaos. Could be that some of the more skeptical people stayed hidden rather than accept the dragon's 'Well meaning' embrace. So we could try there as well."**

The girl replied, **"That might be a good idea. I think some people at the refugee camp I was at stayed behind because they didn't want to be with those lizards."**

Jason nodded a bit and said, **"That sounds like it would be the best start. I bet we'll find a lot of people there who want to make a proper future for themselves without having to rely on these dragons."**

The girl agreed and said, **"Yeah, who needs law-enforcing dragons, when they're better to us as slaves and livestock."** Then she smirked, thinking ridiculing thoughts about the dragons. **"But of course they'll probably end up being only food and fashion items, now that we have magic for our convenient uses."** She rubbed her thumb, pointer, middle fingers together to ignite a small ember above the digits.

The man smiled and continued, **"Could offer to teach people how to survive on our own and how to defend ourselves against this scourge. And when we're strong enough, maybe just maybe we'll save the rest of humanity from the dragons and take back our rightful place."**

Nodding with agreement to the plan, Kathia said, **"Yeah, and we should set up some trade routes with the other refugee camps to get the best things they have while giving them the best of ours in return. That way, we can all better ourselves against the dragons, form alliances, and build up an army to liberate Windfall and take revenge on those beasts."** She almost raised her voice in the excitement built from discussing their plan. Thankfully, she remembered to keep the conversation quiet before it reached anybody's ears.

Mary arrived with the appetizers soon after and she placed the bowl of shrimp cocktail on the center of the table. **"I hope you enjoy your appetizers. I'll be right back soon after I give the other party their lunch,"** she said. Then she went by to attend to a family of four.

Jason held up his glass of water in a toast and said, **"To our future."**

Kathia held up her glass as well and said, **"Yeah!"** They tapped their glasses against each other's before they took their sips.

The rest of the appetizer was passed in relative silence. Jason occasionally commented on the taste of the food. He seemed to enjoy it a great deal mentioning how much better the chef's cooking was than his own. As Kathia picked up one of the shrimps to bite into and chew, the man stated absently, **"I really should take lessons on this. Before the spell my wife did all the cooking. Always said I was a useless sod in the kitchen."** He seemed to pause in his eating as he reflected on his past.

**"Really now. How good was she?"** the girl asked after eating up the last shrimp.

**"Very good!" **the man replied, sounding proud of his wife. Then he added heartily as he looked up at Kathia with a somewhat forced grin, **"Heh, well gonna have to cut it on my own now right?"**

**"On your own?"** the girl asked curiously.

**"Yeah. My family is dead,"** Jason told her. Kathia felt sorry for the man's loss and felt that he was in the same tragic situation as she was. Then the man lightened up and continued, **"Although I guess I'm not completely alone. Got you on my side at least. Though I can't exactly expect you to cook for me and stuff,"** he said with a hearty laugh. **"That just wouldn't be fair, would it?"** he added leaning that table with one arm.

**"Nope, besides I'd rather leave my maid to do that,"** said Kathia, talking about Mrs. Merryweather. **"I mean she's a really good cook and makes most of the meals at home."**

The man nodded slightly and said, **"Wish I had the money for a maid.** **That would make life much easier for me."**

Soon enough, Mary came back to them and took up the empty bowl to put on the cart of collected plated. **"So, have you all decided on what what you want to eat?"** she asked.

Jason told the waitress, **"I'll have the alfredo fettuchini, please."**

Kathia said right after him, **"And I'll have the sauteed scallops."**

Mary wrote down their orders and said, **"Alfredo fettuchini and sauteed scallops coming right up!"** Then she went over to the kitchen to give the list to the chefs.

Jason smiled to the girl and asked, **"Heh, fan of Seafood eh?"**

Kathia replied, **"Yes, I guess** **you could say that,** **since I like pretty** **much everything."** There probably wasn't any seafood in the world that she didn't like. Although she heard that sashimi was raw, but she had never tried it before.

Jason shook his head and said, **"Oh I doubt that, there's gotta be something you're not fond of... other than dragons of course."** He rested his fork arm on the table and leaning in a bit again. **"So tell me what don't you like?"** the man challenged.

Then the girl admitted, **"Well fine, I don't like fast food. They're too greasy and fatty and they taste gross."** It was no wonder why fast food was sold at a cheap price.

Jason cocked an eyebrow at Kathia and teased, **"Fast food? You must be the only person alive that doesn't like fast food."**

The girl retorted, **"Yeah well after you've had good quality food your whole life, fast food might not sit well with your taste."**

Jason just chuckled and said, **"You're probably right about that, eat like a king all the time and suddenly the food of us peasants doesn't cut it."**

Mary returned again and placed their meals on the table. **"Here's your lunch, guys. Enjoy the meals!"** she said cheerfully before leaving again.

After the two ate their lunches, a buzzing noise sounded by Kathia's ear and attracted her attention. A small black insect flew around above the table and the girl got annoyed with its presence. **"Oh hell no! It's just one of those few times a fly shows its ugly rear in a beautiful restaurant like this,"** the girl groaned. She fanned her hand at the fly to scare him away. She told it off, **"Go on, get! And stay away from our food!"** She didn't like bugs at all, but fortunately for them, they were a little behind dragons on her list of things to hate.

The fly flitted over to Jason's plate and was instantly swiped at and crushed onto the table under the man's hand and napkin. He wiped up the remains and balled the napkin up before setting it aside. **"Well, can't really blame them I guess. Times are tough they'd be hard pressed to keep flies out,"** He said warmly.

Kathia sighed in dispirit, **"It's a sign that our quality of life is going downhill. It may not seem like much now, but I'm afraid to find out what our future is going to be like later."** The next thing she can assume will humans losing their jobs as the dragons will replacing doctors with white dragons and dragons replacing construction workers and other labor workers, much like how it happened to the Rittevon Construction Company. Maybe even other jobs will be lost to the dragons, due to their strength and magic powers. The humans will become obsolete and society will be taken over by dragons with the inferior humans becoming second class citizens. The thought scared the poor teenager.

Finishing his meal Jason set down his fork and cleared his throat. **"Then we'd best get a move on. The world isn't going to save itself you know. We've got a lot of work ahead of us and it starts with that settlement just outside of town. So let's get the bill and get going,"** he said sitting back in his chair and looking around the room. Kathia guessed that he was probably looking for the waitress.

**"Right!"** the girl replied.

After a few minutes later, Mary returned and took up the empty plates.** "So, did you all enjoy your meals?"** she asked.

The redhead replied smiling and nodding, **"We sure did! That was some pretty delicious stuff."**

The waitress smiled back and asked, **"I'm glad you appreciate it. So can I pleasure you further with some desserts?"**

Kathia declined, **"Nah, just give us the bill. We need to be on our way."**

"Alright then, I'll be right back with it,"

said Mary before left and went over to the cashier register. She printed the bill and returned with it in hand. She placed it on the table next to Jason and said, **"Here's your bill, sir."**

The girl took the bill away from the man and corrected the waitress, **"No, no, no, I'm paying. I'm the one with the credit card."** She raised the credit card and waved it a little to draw the woman's attention to it.

The surprised waitress put a hand to her chest and said, **"Oh I didn't know. Well then, give it to me and I'll ring it up."** Kathia gave it to her and the woman went to the cashier machine. She slid the credit card in the slot and printed the receipt. She went back to them one last time and returned the credit card back to the redhead and gave her the receipt as well. **"Thanks for eating over at King Bistro. I hope I see you again next time!" **Mary said with a happy smile.

Kathia looked forward to it and replied, **"Me too!"**

After the waitress was gone, Jason said with a nod, **"Thanks again for lunch, Kathia."**

**"You're welcome,"** replied the girl. Then she got up out of the table and said, **"Okay, now to get our followers. I mean friends."** She thought it would be inappropriate to label the people "followers" as these fellow humans were people with feelings and she needed to consider them allies. Jason simply chuckled at her correction as they left the restaurant. They got on the white stallion and rode it through the streets, careful to avoid people and dragons alike. Kathia pondered her thoughts on where to go to reach the refugee camp. **"Now where do I need to go?"** she asked herself. She tried refreshing her memories for a clue as she thought about the night she escaped her home with her mother. She remembered the TV store as one of the places on her route, but the problem was that she had forgotten the name of the store. It probably might have been called "Mike's TVs". She thought to ask first, **"Hey Jason, do we have a Mike's TVs store somewhere in the city?"**

**"I think so, in the west part of the city I believe,"** the man said pensively as if he was trying to recall accurately. As the horse made its way to the western section of Windfall, he mused thoughtfully as he held onto Kathia, **"Wonder what we should call the settlement we form."**

The girl replied, **"I don't know, but maybe something in mind will pop up later."** For it to happen, she had to start thinking of a name now.

Jason assured her, **"Yeah we'll think of something soon enough."** The girl didn't respond as she pondered her thoughts on what kind of name to give their envisioned town. Would New Hope be a good name? With a name like that, it would signify a hope that would one day liberate all the humans from the dragons when they had a big enough army. But that name sounded kind of generic. Generic, but good anyway. Kathia tried to think of a second name and it seemed to be having a hard start. Three minutes went by until she thought of gunmen who shoot down dragons. Now she smiled as she had a new name in her mind: Huntington. She added that to her list of ideas and went to think of a third name in mind which soon came by as Slayville. More and more names came to mind as they finally reached a familiar road from a few days before, but with no Mike's TVs in sight. But she didn't need to look for it as they had made it out into the woods on the same path that she had got on to the refugee camp.

The stallion galloped through the woods until they had found the place that they found the place that they were looking for. This time, the camp was in the process of building a few wooden watch towers. But from the looks of it, they weren't complete yet as they were still building the stairs and supports. **"Look there it is, Jason. I see it,"** said Kathia. She rode the horse towards the place.

The man looked at the uncompleted towers and joked, **"Looks like they got started without us. Probably won't even need a speech."** He looked around and asked, **"Best we speak with the de-facto leader round here."**

**"Yeah,"** Kathia replied. They went into the camp to search for the man or woman in charge. The redhead thought it would be easier to find him/her if she asked someone around here. She rode up to a woman walking by and asked, **"Excuse me. Do you know where we can find the person who's in charge of this place?"**

The woman replied, **"Oh Roderick? Well I don't know where he is. But if you want to find him, you can probably wait for him over at the tent." **She went on to describe the tent's appearance,** "It's big and red; it'll be pretty easy to see since it stands out."**

With that info received, Kathia said to her, **"Okay, thanks for your help, lady." **Jason gave a polite nod and a "thank you" to the lady as well.

**"You're welcome,"** the woman replied.

The stallion walked all the way over to the red tent, where the camp manager was sitting on a chair outside with a clipboard in hand. He was a slightly chubby dark-haired brunette with sunglasses. **"Is that him?"** asked Kathia.

Jason shrugged and whispered to the girl, **"Maybe, but part of me hopes not. I'd rather not ally myself with someone who looks like they've had life fed to them on silver platters."** They got off the horse and walked up to the man as he asked, **"Excuse us, we're looking for a man named Roderick, do you know where we might find him?"**

The man pointed at himself with two thumbs and answered, **"Well sir, you're looking at him. That's me!"**

Jason inquired, **"So Roderick, we see your refugee camp's near Windfall, but strangely nobody here wants to return home. Why is that? I mean the city's been rebuilt and none of the dragons there want to harm anyone."** Kathia knew that this wasn't just a question of asking for reasons behind their choice; it was also a build-up towards getting him and these people on their side.

Roderick answered, **"The reason why we ain't going anywhere is because the lizards like them have torn apart our lives. Heck, even some of the lizards in living in that damned city are the ones responsible for all that catastrophe back a few nights ago."** That part was very much true. Kathia had seen one of her slaves among the dragon citizens and the Aquarians hadn't done anything to apprehend those rebels. And them not attacking humans no more was no excuse to not have them punished. **"And to make things worse, the cities' handed half the government to these fiends. Now we're being policed by… what they call themselves?"** The camp manager tried to remember the foreign fire dragons.

The girl answered for him, **"The Aquarians."**

Roderick nodded and said in growing disgruntlement, **"The Aquarians, okay. So anyway, we're being watched like a hawk by these scalies and having our lives and culture controlled by them. Now who the hell would want to live in a city like that?"**

Kathia agreed and said, **"Not me."**

Roderick made a finger gun hand gesture as if she got that right and said, **"Exactly! Now you see why no one around here is going back. Well some of us did, but they didn't have an ounce of pride and spirit in them."** He shook his head at the fact that there were people who would trade their own freedoms for security. He continued speaking, **"Now I heard the Aquarians were forcing humans from around this country into the city. We had to lie to them and say that our camp is just a fun activity. Even we had to put on an act to convince them that. They took it for not, but I have a gut feeling that they might come back here eventually. And when they do, they probably won't believe us next time."** The man let out a sigh and said, **"I wish we had some way of defending ourselves from the Aquarians."**

Jason said pensively, **"I hear you. Just defending yourselves isn't good enough though."** Then with enthusiasm, he continued, **"I believe we can help you. We have been honing our own combative and survival skills. We can turn this camp into a team; into people who work for the betterment of each other. Such a community would never fall to the dragons."** He stated with a fire in his voice, **"We can teach magic and archery to the people. That along with strong teamwork will turn this camp into fighting force capable of repelling serious draconic threats. And with resource gathering we can turn this camp into a proper town. But, to turn this into a proper home for humans by humans, we'll need your full support and co-operation,"** he added with finality. **"What do you say Roderick, willing to let us work with you?"** he asked.

Roderick listened to every word that Jason had spoken. He was impressed with and inspired by his ideas. **"That sounds brilliant there, pal!"** he exclaimed while pointing at Jason. **"It's what we need if we ever hope to keep ourselves from being assimilated by the Aquarians and attacked by wild animals, especially them damn dragon ones,"** said the camp manager. **"You're in, you two. I'm going to tell the whole camp right now about your combat lessons and then we'll get a class in session immediately. By the way, what are your names?"** he asked.

The redhead answered friendly, **"I'm Kathia."**

Her companion stated, **"I'm Jason Quellin. And let me say you've got the right idea with the watchtowers but we're way too close to the city, before we start our lessons it'll be better if we move the camp farther away. That way we won't have to worry about Aquarion interference as much."** The archer was right; they needed to plan ahead if this was going to work and being literally right next door to a dragon city seemed like a bad idea.

Roderick kind of agreed and said, **"Well I suppose you're right about that. It's just that since we don't have any shops or stores of our own, I figured that if we stay this close than people will be able to get the supplies they need from the city and keep on surviving."**

Kathia sympathized with his reason said, **"Well I guess I can understand. But you can always use these cars to get from one far place to the other, right?"** She looked at the vehicles nearby to show before speaking to him again, **"And if we do run out of gas, we can always buy these horses inside the city and use them instead until we find a place we can drill oil from."**

Roderick nodded and said, **"Well I suppose that works. I guess I better call the whole camp and tell them that we'll be moving out."** The camp manager went into his tent and came out with a megaphone. He held it in front of his mouth and spoke into it, **"Attention all staff members and refugees! Please pack up your stuff, equipment and everything. Our two new friends, well teachers to be exact, have noticed how too close we are to the city and suggest that we move some place farther away so that we don't have to deal with any dragons coming from Windfall. Pass the message on to everyone; we're moving north right now."** The whole camp started to get going with packing up and putting supplies into the trucks and cars.

Jason suggested to both the camp manager and the girl, **"We should collapse the watchtowers and take them with us, even if it's just in pieces. Those towers will be essential in securing a safe place to sleep."**  
Then he asked Kathia in particular, **"I'll round up some men to get that done. Kathia do you want to help?"**

**"Sure,"** the girl said as she was eager to get things down for the sake of the human's town.

Roderick sighed and said, **"Well it's a shame to see all that hard work put into these towers turn back into scraps, but we got to do what we got to do."  
**  
Jason led the way approaching some of the cam inhabitants and asking for volunteers to take down the towers. the response was surprisingly good. It seemed these people were eager to get away from windfall now that dragons had taken over. Once the people had set to work on the towers, the archer spoke to his friend with a smile, **"I really should thank you Kathia. I would never have known about these people if it weren't for you. I was getting ready to settle down as a hermit before we met, not sure what would have happened then but I shudder at some of the things that come to mind. So thanks a lot!"  
**  
The redhead smiled back in joy that she helped a fellow human being and said, **"You're welcome, Jason! You know, I'm glad I met you, too. Because I don't think anybody would have followed someone young such as myself. I mean I had some good ideas, but people would rather have older people as leaders. And that's where you fit in; you're old enough to be one and you're smart. Heck, you would be an even better leader than me."  
**  
**"Thanks Kathia,"** the man said with pride. Then he asked, **"Actually, do you mind if I call you Kat? I'm just not used to being formal with much of anyone."**

The girl replied contently, **"Not at all. I don't mind that kind of nickname."** Then they went to take down the lumber and load them onto the truck.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Thus Kathia takes another step towards being a BBEG (big bad evil girl). I can't wait until she and Jason gets their own army to thwart the Aquarians and take over Windfall. I'm still working on that process in the RP.

Mary and Roderick (c) me


	21. The Carnival

**Chapter 20: The Carnival**

Minerva went on her way to the magic carnival event to check it out. She didn't have work today, because Richard decided to give everyone a break to recover from the trauma of the tragic event. She looked to see that there were large circus tents with purple &amp; white stripes, animal pens, game stands, dancers, rides, and food stands at the town center. Looked on with interest at the fun things here and admired the dancers' colorful and festive appearances. She reached the carnival entrance and went in. The woman looked around to see which game she would play first. There was the dart game, where people would throw darts to pop the balloons for a prize. Next to it was a game called "Toss a Ring", where the players would throw a ring at one of the small poles. The other one was the typical heavy hammer game that tested the player's strength to see if they could hit the bell. That game was definitely not for Minerva as she couldn't lift up the hammer high enough and win. She decided to make her way to Toss-a-Ring and play that game first. She gave the man a silver coin and received three wings. She threw them all, but only one managed to make it onto the pole. **"Oh man, I lost,"** said Minerva. But she wasn't affected by the loss anyway. She just wanted to have fun.

The woman left the ring toss game to go try out the other games. As she walked, she heard a man somewhere shouting joyfully, **"We got a winner!"**

She turned her head to get a curious look at the winner. To her surprise, she saw the familiar duo once again at the hammer game. The hooded man from yesterday had rang the bell and won the game. _'You know, I keep running into these two lately. It's almost as if fate's trying to bring us together or something,'_ she thought contemplatively. _'Maybe something dangerous will happen here next? Like a mad crazy cloud coming here to terrorize the carnival?'_ she thought jokingly. The woman made her way to the high striker game and looked at the hooded man, to whom she smiled at and greeted, **"Hi, congrats!"**

The man turned his head to the sound of her voice and smiled back at her. He asked curiously, **"Hi, thanks. Are you doing alright?"**

**"Why yes I am,"** Minerva replied. She was a bit grateful for his concern.

Then the man apologized, **"I'm so sorry you got pulled into the mess with those criminals; I never intended for you to get caught in the middle of it."**

The woman forgave him and said, **"It's alright. I'm pretty sure you never saw that coming. I mean who would?"** The future was certainly unpredictable with all kinds of surprises both good and bad.

Then the man asked,**"By the way, what's your name? I've had to save you twice, running into you more than once, and yet I don't know your name."** The copper dragon close to him nodded with kindness in his emerald green eyes.

The woman introduced herself, **"My name's Minerva. I'm a member of ADR; you know, the building that got attacked. And who would you be, Mr. Hero?"**

The man smiled and answered, **"I'm Ronan."** Then he turned to his dragon friend and continued, **"And this walking bag of fire and ice is Drake. We're from the southern desert."** He patted Drake's nose. Then he asked curiously, **"What does ADR stand for?"**

The woman gladly answered, **"It stands for the Association for Dragon Rights. I understand that you may not hear of us much, because our organization is small and unpopular. Slave owners and conservatives would often ridicule us for trying to show the cruelties of slavery and free the dragons."** It was amazing the ADR managed to stay strong despite the strong opposition they faced. Maybe now the dragons were free, the Aquarians were here to police any human-dragon conflicts in the city, and the mayor having banned any form of oppression and killings of the dragons, the ADR will be stronger and help accelerate the harmony between the two races. Then she became interested in Ronan's homeland and asked, **"So what's your country like? The southwest region."**

Ronan went on to explain, **"It's mostly sand. A few oasis spots spread out. Easy to miss because those who aren't from the land think they're seeing a mirage and walk right past one. I lived there for only five years of my childhood."**

**"Mmhmm,"** Minerva responded, unsure of what to say. What the man said about the southwest region sounded like the way the TV media portrays the country's land and climate; well when a character finds something only to be fooled by the mirage's illusion.

Then the southwesterner shut his eyes and continued, **"After that, I lived in the mountains, often passing down into the desert for trading purposes with my teacher."**

**"What kind of teacher was he?"** the woman asked.

They started to walk together as Ronan continued his story, **"He... taught me to survive; how to hunt. He taught me everything I know. The one thing he couldn't teach me was how to let go of pain."**

**"Pain?"** Minerva blurted without thinking. Then she quickly realized that bringing up his past might not have been a good idea. It might make Ronan recall some horrible memories and make him feel bad. **"Uh forget what I just said. Tell me more about your master,"** she said, trying to change the subject.

The man sighed and then said, **"He wasn't of my blood, but he was more of a father to me since..."**

When he was unable to speak anymore, the woman suggested, **"Well let's just forget about the past for now, it seems like it's just making you sad. Why don't we go play a game instead, or watch one of the performers?"** She hoped the change in topic to something more joyful would cheer him up.

Ronan sighed before nodding to Minerva. **"Yeah, I'd like that,"** he said with a small smirk.

**"Me too,"** Minerva replied.

Drake followed them as the man asked her, **"So, what are you doing in this city anyway? Is the ADR your only focus?"**

The woman answered, **"****Well most of the time it is, because I work over there as a journalist. But other than that, I also try to live a normal life as everyone else. Hanging out with friends and what not."** They stopped to see the performers, who were all women in brightly colored costumes with large feathers in the back to give the appearance of wings. They danced as their feathers and beads shook.

Ronan looked down slightly and said sadly, **"I have no clue what to do with my life anymore..."**

Minerva turned her head to him and she said, **"Huh?" **She wondered what had gotten him down this time.

The man continued, **"Now that my revenge is done... I feel incomplete."**

From Minerva's understanding, it sounded like he was talking about the kidnapper he slew last night to save her. She said to him, **"That's the thing with revenge; sometimes it causes more problems than it solves. I'm not sure what you can do after that, but maybe you could find a job somewhere in town. I know the ADR has some job openings up to replace our lost members."**

Ronan shook his head and replied, **"No... I'm not of any use in an organization like that. I'm trained to hunt and kill. ADR sounds like it doesn't use someone with those skills."**

**"Well I suppose I'll have to think of another job, won't I?"** said Minerva. She pondered her thoughts and brainstormed some occupations that would fit the foreigner. The first thing that came to mind was hunting. Being a hunter involved hunting and catching animals for food, fur, and other purposes. The hunter would trade in the animals he/she caught and get paid. The woman looked to Ronan and confidently suggested, **"How about becoming a hunter? That would put the skills you have to good use."**

The man smirked looking at her and replied, **"Perhaps. Only one problem with that. A hunter usually has someone to come home to... I have neither a home nor someone to return to."** He sighed unhappily.

Minerva felt sympathetic to the man's trouble and wanted to help him out. She placed a hand on his shoulder and offered, **"Maybe you could stay over at my house. I wouldn't mind a room mate."**

Ronan turned to face her and gave her a smirk. **"You'd offer me a home when you barely know me? Why?"** he asked curiously.

**"Well? Where else are you going to stay?"** asked Minerva. **"Surely, not out in the streets."** She continued, **"Besides, you saved my life twice. I feel like I should owe you."** Sure it was true that she hardly knew him, but after the events she saw involving him, the woman felt that he was a good person who would never harm an innocent person.

Ronan's smirk turned to a smile. **"Well, I appreciate that, thank you. Do you have a place for Drake to stay as well?"** he inquired. **"He can sleep just about anywhere."**

Drake's eyes rolled at his friend's comment before he added, **"I can sleep in many places, I'll be fine wherever you can fit me."**

Minerva replied, **"Well I do have a garage. But I'll have to clear some stuff up to make room for him."** Even with her car gone, there was still some things that would take up space in the garage.

Drake nodded as his human partner said, **"That could work, Drake is rather big though so I hope your garage is big enough." **

**"It is,"** the woman confirmed in response.

Ronan told her, **"If we're going to do this, you should know I do a lot of exercising and I will find ways to exercise around your home most likely."**

Minerva smiled with interest and said, **"Wow, you sound like you're an athlete. I can't wait to see what kind of exercises you'll do."** She was looking forward to seeing what kinds of exercises he does that were out of the Northeast region's culture.

The man smile with a chuckled, saying, **"This feels so different from how I've been living my life. I don't have to hunt anymore. Let me know when it's time to go."** He smirked at her through his hood. Drake was sitting, enjoying the festival entertainment.

**"Okay,"** Minerva responded. The dancers had finished their performance, which was pretty soon after the pair were done talking. **"Come on, let's go see what else is there,"** the woman said. She moved around looking for an interesting attraction. There, she saw a tent belonging to a fortune teller and there were like ten people in line. Thinking that this might sound like a bit of fun, Minerva said, **"Ooh, a fortune teller. Ronan, do you want to check it out?"**

The man said in suspicion, **"I don't think that's a good idea. They're usually scam artists."** But Drake nudged him as if the dragon wanted Ronan to go check it out.

**"Well I suppose you're right about that,"** said Minerva agreeing with him. She looked at the bright side of this and said, **"But still it's kind of fun to see what you'll get. But if you still don't want to go in, we can always play another game or see if they started the parade."** As much as fortune-telling was fun, the parade sounded interesting. She wondered what kinds of platforms, dancers, and musicians she'll see there.

Ronan nodded and said, **"Sure, we can do that."**

**"Okay then,"** Minerva responded. She walked with the man and dragon as she looked at the guide to see where the parade would take place at and which games were nearest to there. She found an archery game that was two game spots away from the parade. Thinking the man might want to play, the woman looked to him and asked, **"Hey Ronan, there's an archery game here. Think you might be interested?"**

Ronan smiled and looked at the game. **"You don't want me to do that,"** he said, sounding over-confident. **"I'd be obligated to win... and I don't miss unless it's on purpose."** Drake grinned listening to the two.

The woman smiled back and replied, **"Oh, but I believe you'll have lots of fun. After all, it's a game suited to a warrior like yourself. Maybe you'll win at it."** She'd like to see how good he was with a bow and arrow as much as he was with a sword. **"You sound really confident with this, Ronan. Care to show off your skills?"** she asked.

The man chuckled. **"Since you insist,"** he said, as they walked up to the booth. They looked at the bows and toy arrows. Then they looked to the guy running the booth.

**"Five shots per person,"** the carny said.

Ronan drew his own bow and one arrow. The guy started cranking a wheel to make the targets move but he could only make it go a certain speed. The assassin was able to keep up. **"Three... Two... One,"** he counted before he fired the five arrows in 5 seconds flat. Using only a split second between shots to check his aim. Each arrow pierced their target dead center. Minerva's azure blue eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open in astonishment. Never before had she seen anybody go this fast at archery. It was like Ronan was either a really good pro or a superman. The carny hesitantly pulled the arrows out, handing them to Ronan before giving him the reward from the top shelf. The prize was a stuff animal of a frog-like cartoon character, who was green &amp; white with blue eyes and wore purple clothes. The assassin handed it to Minerva. **"For you,"** he said with a smile. He put away his bow and arrows.

The woman accepted his gift gratefully and replied, **"Oh why thank you!"**

Ronan smirked at her before they would continue on. **"You know, this is my first time having such fun since I was a child,"**he commented.

**"Really now?"** said Minerva.

**"I remember all the times my family played games... my brothers and sisters..."** the assassin sighed.

Although, he seemed calm, Minerva could tell that there was a hint of sadness to his tone. So she decided to leave the siblings out of the conversation for his sake. **"Sounds like you've had a wonderful childhood. Times like that are often the greatest days of your life,"** she said, smiling.

Drake gave the man an affectionate nudge and Ronan patted his head in return with a chuckle. Then the man looked at Minerva with curiosity. **"Why are you so nice to me Minerva? I'm not saying I don't appreciate it, I do, but..."** He sounded baffled, **"I don't understand why. Anyone else would be afraid of me because of what I can do."**

**"****Because I'm nice to everyone,"** the woman answered. **"****I mean you wouldn't want to be with someone who was all rude and rotten, would you?"** she said as she made an ugly face for a brief second while speaking. **"****Plus, it's not every day you get to meet someone of your caliber. It feels impressing being around a skilled fighter. I'm not sure why people would be afraid. I think you're amazing,"** she said.

Ronan smiled and commented, **"Thank you Minerva... I appreciate that. You're quite amazing yourself."**

Minerva felt flattered and chuckled heartily. **"Oh stop! I'm just a regular person myself,"** she said. She felt a nudge from Drake behind her and got pushed towards the man's arms. After she was really close to him, the blonde blushed at first for a few seconds and thought, _'Well this is kind of awkward.'_ Then she brushed off the awkwardness giggled at how a bit funny it was. **"Well don't we look like a couple,"** she joked.

Ronan gave his dragon friend a scolding glare before he chuckled at Minerva, **"If we were, you would be my first."**

Minerva smiled back and giggled. Then a loud masculine voice was heard announcing, **"Ladies and gentlemen, the parade is about to start! Gather at the street to see our amazing line of floats, bands, and dancers! You wouldn't want to miss this spectacular event, not even the start of it. So stop playing carnival games and get your behinds here and come see the show!"**

Minerva started to get excited and said, **"Oh my gosh, the parade! I have to go see it!"** She walked off ahead a few feet before she stopped and turned around to asked, **"Hey, do you want to come?"**

**"Go on ahead, save me a seat, I'll be right there,"** Ronan said before walking away.

**"****Okay,"** the woman replied. She went over to one of the sidewalks where the crowd stood as they await the parade. When she looked at the crowd, she noticed that the humans and dragons were standing separated from one another. The humans seemed to be avoiding the dragons like a plague. Minerva knew why and she couldn't blame them for it. A few days later after the tragic event was still too fresh in their minds for them to want to forgive the dragons easily. _'__It's going to take quite a long time for us to get along together,'_ she thought and sighed.

* * *

Atlas watched her nieces play-fight with one another. Danielle was trying to nip at her sister while using the characteristic reflexes, albeit imperfect, to dodge her sister's hand smacks. The magi smiled, liking the fact that they were having fun. _'Look at them; being competitive and trying to win. They almost look like they're warriors themselves. It sure takes me back to the time when Flarina and I played with each other,'_ she thought. She pictured Kylie as herself and Danielle as Flarina inside a desert cave that resembled their childhood home in Solomos. Those memories she reflected on were certainly nostalgic with joy, but at the same time, Atlas missed her sister and wished that she was here to talk about the good old days together before their enslavement.

Her thoughts were soon interrupted by the ringing sound of a metallic object dropped on the floor. She turned her head around to see that Axle was awake. A broken sword was very close by him on the floor; it was probably the source of the sound. The man picked up one of the swords and ran it into a crack in the ground. Then he sat down and lean against it. He look up at Atlas, with his blue eyes softened. **"If you wish to know something, you might want to ask me now,"** Axle said in a faint tone. **"And before you ask, my name is Axle Intrans from the land of Shadow Wind."**

A few questions, both important and curious, came to Atlas's mind. She planned on asking them one at a time. **"So Axle of Shadow Wind, from what I heard from your friend Strider, you two were being hunted by that Marc character. Why is that?"** she asked.

The man answered, **"Marc was paid to hunt us by a necromancer named Spinx, who want my heart for eternal life and this triangle. Other than that, I am not allowed to say."** He look over at the the two little ones playing around.

**"****Sounds like you two have been on the run for a while,"** said Atlas.

Axle look at the sphere with the orange flame dancing inside it glass shell. It color started to shade a bit to more of a sunset red. The man shook his head and stood up. He grabbed the huge sword and pulled it out of the ground. He placed the sword on his shoulder. **"I'm sorry about this whole thing we got you caught up in, but I have a request I must ask you. Will you take this to the mountain if I can't?"** Axle said as he held out the yellow triangle.

The magi replied, **"****Sure, I can. But which mountain is it?"** She couldn't just go blindly running towards any mountain without knowing if it was the right one or not.

Axle answered, **"It is a mountain named Trident. All I know is it is a very old mountain with a stone that have a hole for the triangle to fit into. Rumor said it will show the path of the person what they need to do, and what need to be paid to do it."**

**"****Trident, eh? I never heard of it. But if I do see it, I'll let you know, alright?"** Atlas said. Then she made a vow, **"****And Axle, I'll do everything to protect you in Strider's stead. With Marc gone, Spinx is going to have to find another sellsword to do his dirty work. And this should buy us a lot of time."** Time to get further away from the bad guy that is.

As Axle stared hard into the magi's eyes, he said, **"Strider was not just my friend to let you know, he was a personal bodyguard, assign to me by my father and the court before I left. He volunteer for the job, and know the risk. I can't let you risk your life when you already have those two to protect. Spinx will use it to his advantage."**

Atlas reasoned, **"****Well you are right that I do have my nieces to take care of. But how are you going to survive on your own, Axle? I mean if that Spinx crook is a necromancer; that means he's probably going to send some zombies after you. And who knows how many of them he has."** She imagined a white dragon, knowing how most of them were pacifists, would not stand a chance against a horde of zombies, especially if they were dragons.

The man shook his head and said, **"No, I don't know either, and it seems that there no way of changing your mind."** He looked back at the two hatchlings still playing and continued, **"Seeing how if Spinx finds those two, we are going to be in trouble; so it would be best if they came with us."** Axle turned his head back to the magi with a bit of pity in his eyes. **"It is your choice and I can't stop you from making it. Now if you excuse me, I'm just going to be outside and do a Shadow wind tradition for Strider,"** he said as he grab both of the large swords and took them with him.

Atlas watched Axle leave to go do the Shadow Wind tradition. She didn't know what it was, but she guessed that it was some kind of ritual for the dead. The dragoness went over to her nieces, who stopped playing and listened to what their aunt had to say. **"****Danielle, Kylie, we're going with Axle to Trident mountain,"** she told them.

Kylie wondered what that place was and asked, **"****What is a twident mountain?"**

The magi answered, **"****It's a place where we're going to put Axle's special object at. Spinx wants it and we can't let him have that. He'll try to come after all of us for it. So we're all going to stick together so that we can be safe."**

**"Who's Spinx?"** asked Danielle.

**"A very bad human that you should stay away from,"** the aunt answered warily. Speaking of bad humans, Atlas now felt it was a good time to teach her nieces a good way to flee. **"Listen, since we're going to move again pretty soon. I think I should tell you girls what to do in case you see a bad guy,"** she said to them. Then she instructed them, **"Kylie, inflate yourself. Danielle, wrap your tail around her foot or tail."** The balloon hatchling breathed in a lot of air and inflated herself, then the whiptail grabbed her sister's foot with her tail. With the preparation done, Atlas told them the next step, **"Now start running around, Danielle." **

**"Okay Aunt Atwas,"** said Danielle. The hatchling started to run away as Kylie was dragged through the air. The balloon hatchling at first a bit surprised by being pulled fast like this, but then she started to enjoy the ride and giggle happily. Hearing how her sister laughed, made Danielle happy as well and she, too, laughed along with her sibling.

The magi let the whiptail run for a little while until she told them, **"Now do you see how easy it is to escape like that. Now you and Kylie can get away good without being slowed down. So keep that mind the next time you're in danger."**

The sisters replied, **"Okay!"**

Atlas felt glad that her nieces had learned this important lesson. But her pride soon died down when she stiffed up in alert after smelling the scent of blood from outside. She sensed that something was wrong. _'Oh what happened now?'_ wondered the magi.

Danielle stopped running as the hatchlings smelled blood, too. Kylie said, **"Smells wike somebody got hurt."**

Axle appeared at the doorway with a part of his clothing was covered in blood, along with his hands. **"We might want to be leaving now. A group of bandits just came by and Spinx is not far behind either. His death scent is getting stronger every moment, which means he getting closer,"** he said in a undertone as he try to whip the blood off his hands.

Atlas frowned and cursed, **"Oh shit, we got to go! Danielle, Kylie, get on. We're getting the hell out of here!"** The hatchlings quickly got onto their aunt's back and she took off into the air to fly through the hole in the building. **"Let's go, Axle,"** she told the man.

Axle turned into his dragon form and jumped into the air and with a power thrust of his wings. In clear day light scars over his body was visible from every angle, each look like swords marks and other dragons. Easily, the white dragon caught up with Atlas and said, **"There one other thing I need to do for Strider before we leave, and you may watch if you wish."**

The magi stopped and hovered in the air. **"****Alright, but make it quick, okay?"** she said. The longer they waited, the closer Spinx would get to them. Axle flew straight up higher in the air. Almost as if at the perfect height, the dragon switched form again and started to fall; and then it started. With Grace of his moves and his combine dragon form and human form into a dance. Atlas opened her mouth in worry and wondered, _'__What the hell is he doing? Is this really how the ritual goes? Why is he falling?' _Then her worry subsided a little when she thought about it. He probably might have done this before, so he's going to be. Besides he could transform back into a dragon and use his wings to prevent himself from crashing to death on the ground.

Axle stopped dancing between the halfway point from his original fall and the ground. Then he changed to his dragon form and caught himself just above the tree line and quickly return back to Atlas. **"We may go now,"** he said. **"But we must go north; north-east to the mountain."**

Atlas understood and said, **"Alright, I got it."** If the mountain was in the northeast direction, that would mean she will be going the other way since she had been traveling west to journey to the Northwest region. She hoped that the mountain they were going to wasn't anywhere near Windfall. Because that would mean she would have to extra protective with her nieces, since that's where the hybrids were. She'll be damned if she let anyone of these creatures near and hurt them. But at least they were going in a northern and it was probably above the rebuilt city on the map, if she had one. The two dragons flew up north, while taking glances in between 30 seconds to see if Sphinx or anybody related to him were below them.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Hey Nuii700, if you're reading this description, I want to let you know that they're a cameo of one of your characters here. See if you can find him. Also, now that this chapter is done, it's time to go reply at the RP, which I've been delaying.

Also with the recent introduction of the dragon encyclopedia in Dragon Cave, I discovered some contradictions to some of the characters' breeds like Bam going with his cousin at daytime, when he should have been nocturnal, and his eating of fruits, when his breed is carnivorous. With all the observing I've done for the encyclopedia, I should probably go edit some of my chapters. But not now, because I need to have the fanfic catch up to the RP's present time.

Spinx (c) draco8967


	22. Learning Water Magic

**Chapter 21: Learning Water Magic**

After a little while later at the carnival, more people and dragons arrived at the sides of the street, filling in the empty spaces with their crowding numbers. Minerva saw the announcer guy walking to the middle of the street and speaking through the microphone to the audience, **"Ladies and Gentleman, thank you for coming to this festival's grand parade. We will now start the show immediately. Bring out the marching band!"** Immediately, trumpets, drums, and tubas started filling the air with loud music. Minerva looked both ways to see where the marching band was coming from and there they were coming from the left side. Men and women in red uniforms and white pants marched down the street as they played their instruments.

Within moments, Ronan and Drake came by to stand in the spots that Minerva had kept guarded for when they returned. **"Made it just in time,"** the assassin said, handing her some cotton candy he got for the parade as he sat down to watch with her. Drake sat behind the pair as the other humans close to him moved away in contempt.

**"****Thanks!"** said Minerva, happy he got one of her favorite snacks. She took a piece off the soft pink treat and put it into her mouth to melt and taste its sweetness. Following the marching band came three couples with men wearing white tuxedos &amp; gray pants and women in greenish-yellow dresses with fluffy white trims. They waltzed along the street as the crowd shouted cheers at them. **"****Don't they look so wonderful?"** Minerva asked as she admired their outfits.

The parade went on with more floats, dancers, dragon performance, and another marching band. Then the crowd heard a call from a booming draconic voice and turned their attention to see an Aquarian spitfire dragon propped himself on the large dragon fountain at the center. **"Citizens of Windfall, we will be making an announcement shortly. This concerns humans and dragons alike,"** he said as his whitish-blue metal armor acting as a great sound conductor.

As the crowd turned their attention back to the parade, Minerva took an interest to the mysterious news and thought, _'Sounds like the Aquarians want to tell us something. I wonder what they're going to talk about.'_

After the parade ended, a big gold dragon in Aquarian armor flew into the town square, landing next to the fountain. He was too bulky to perch on it like the spitfire. The dragon smiled at the crowd and spoke to them, **"Good day, Citizens. I hope you've had fun at this ongoing festival. Many of you might know me from a few days ago. If not, I am Woltar, head of the Aquarians. Now that humans and dragons have settled in for a few days, I wanted to bring up a more pressing matter. It is our belief stray dragon and humans groups will unfortunately strike against Windfall to prevent such a united city. In good faith that we promote the ability to live here in a peaceful life, we believe we need to teach you how to defend yourselves. Aquarian ambassadors have gathered masters of different dragon types to teach humans and dragons alike the art of magic since technology is not at your disposal. There are many elements of magic and you are free to try whichever you like, but we do have counselors to help make a decision if you need help. Magic relies on your own mind, and thus, different personalities mold better with different elements."**

As Woltar continued talking towards the end, the crowd, most commonly the humans, started discussing among themselves and voices their opinions varying from excitement to refusal to learn from dragons. Minerva was one of the ones to find this news very exciting and was enthusiastic to get to try her skills at magic. She could use it for convenient uses as well as to help people. Of course she'll need to know some information first, since in the midst of her excitement, she had let the last words of Woltar's speech fly out the other ear. The woman turned to Ronan and said, **"****I'll be right back."** The man nodded to her and she went over to Woltar to ask, **"****Excuse me, I hope I'm not disturbing you. But can I ask you where I need to go learn some magic?"**

The Aquarian leader looked down at her and chuckled softly. **"Not a problem. We are teaching in the city hall since it is the roomiest place for our kind. We may take groups out into the field if need be. But for now, I suspect beginner level magic will do for the indoor,"** he said as he raised a claw in the direction of the giant castle-like building in the far distance. Minerva looked at the architecture in bewilderment as she never imagined a government building would be the one place to learn magic. They looked back to each other and the dragon informed some more, **"We ourselves can only teach about fire, but there are many masters in there for different elements. You don't seem like the fire type to me. Something soft I'd guess. But that's just the ramblings of an old man. Go try it out if you like, it's still mid day."**

Smiling at Woltar, Minerva said, **"Okay sure, I'll be on my way then. Thanks for your help!"** Then she walked back to Ronan and Drake and said to them, **"Well I'm going off to go learn some magic. You don't mind if Drake gives me a ride over to the city hall, do you?"**

**"Sure, Drake can handle that,"** Ronan said, smiling as he patted his friend's scaly skin.

Drake walked over and said, **"It would be my pleasure, lady Minerva."** Then he crouched down for her to climb on.

After Minerva mounted the dragon, Ronan said, **"I'll be on the rooftops when you're done, Drake."** Then he head on out as Drake took Minerva to city hall. She got the feel of flying out into the open air and being able to see buildings below clearly and closely than she did in an airplane. She had never ridden on a dragon before and the experience felt amazing. She let out a cry of excitement.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the large doors of the city hall and Minerva hopped off. She looked up at the dragon and said with a grin, **"****Thanks for the ride, Drake! It was so exciting riding in the air like that. I've never rode on a dragon before."**

Drake nodded to her and said with a smirk, **"Anytime Miss Minerva. If I may say... if you wanted to ride again, I'm sure Ronan would be willing to accompany."**

**"I'll keep that in mind,"** the woman said. A ride with company sounded fun and she hoped to do that sometime. Minerva went inside the city hall and saw the magic masters, who all seemed to be dragons of different elements. A water dragon for water magic, a gray dragoness for wind, a gold-feather white dragon for light, an ice dragon for ice, an Aquarian ember dragon for fire, a thunder dragoness for lightning, a black dragon for darkness, and a green dragon for earth. She looked at each and everyone one of them as she wondered which element she should go with first. She guessed an element in water would be a good start as she had seen buildings go up in flames yesterday and want to be prepared in case something like that happened next time. She went to stand with the group of people for water magic training.

After a few minutes gone by, more dragons and humans showed up to join the group. It was now time for class to start; the water master teacher looked at how big the group was and said to everyone,** "****Ah, it looks like I have quite the handful of people around here to learn. But alas, having a class this large would be difficult for me to teach. So instead, I'm going to split everyone into small groups and take a few at a time. I'll pick the first six to go with me to the moonlight dragon fountain."** He pointed at each individual with his finned tail as he said,** "****I'll pick you, and you, and you, you, you, and you."**The last person he pointed to was Minerva.

Unsure if her guess about being picked was right, she pointed to herself and asked, **"****Me?"**

**"Yes you, who else am I talking to?"** the water master said. **"****Now before we go, I should introduce myself to all of you. I am Gynast, master of the water element. Since we don't have a large bowl of water inside this city hall, all of our magic lessons will take place outside. So come along everyone that was chosen. The rest of you will stay here until I get back with training the students outdoors."** Gynast slithered like a snake across the floor while the others followed him out the door. The group walked through the busy streets, mindful of the passing individuals, until they reached the town fountain in the largest square of the city. The fountain had a circular shape and it was decorated with lights that were currently dim. A large statue of a moonlight dragon sat in the middle of the fountain with vine dragons surrounding the eastern beast. Smaller dragons were carved into the actual stone face of the fountain. The water master stood next to it while the students stayed before him. He explained to the humans,**"Now in order to use to be able to use magic, you'll need to unlock your inner gate which prevents you from using the powers of magic. Dragons from birth are able to use magic, but humans however need to unseal their powers."** After he explained to everyone how to unlock the inner gates, he said,**"Humans, unlock your powers now."**

**"Unluk magisto,"** Minerva and the others said as they started unlocking their inner gates. They felt a weird tingling sensation within their bodies. The woman widened her eyes a bit in bewilderment and wondered, _'Huh? Is this the magic I feel? Did I unlock my inner gates?'_

Gynast went on to say, **"If you're feeling something in your bodies, then good! You have successfully unlocked your inner gates. Now we move on to the basics of water magic."** He explained, **"In order to use water magic, you'll need to picture the essence of water in your minds and then channel that magic energy into the form of water spell you want. But for this exercise, we're going to focus on the fountain's water itself." **The water master held his tail over the fountain's water and explained the steps, **"****Our first spell of practice and the most basic of water magic is the Water Control spell. The first thing you'll want to do is look at any body of water and bring the magic energy to your eyes. The energy will automatically transfer into the water in less than a second. Then that will be when you will the water into going which way you want it to or you can take some of it out and shape it into any form you like."** He demonstrated this by using his water control spell to bring up a ball of water out of the fountain. He warped its shape into various forms like a pyramid, a cylinder, and a coil. The students were bewitched as they watched the spell in action. Immediately, the coil lost form and returned back to normal as it fell back into the fountain. **"****What you just saw is what happens when you lose focus on the water you control. You must always keep your concentration on the water, so that it doesn't fall and splash on the ground. You understand that?"** he asked. Everybody said 'yes' and Gynast said, **"****Good now, begin trying out that spell I just explained to you."**

Everyone looked at the water and focused their magic energies onto it. Minerva brought up a small watery sphere that was two inches in diameter. She looked at her successful attempt in amazement and said, **"****Wow."** Everybody else got their water spheres, too. A young boy was making his sphere fly up and down and he laughed as he had fun with it.

After letting the students play around with their water balls for a little while, Gynast said to them, **"Okay everyone, that's enough. Please drop your waters back into the fountain, so that we can get to the next part of the lesson."** The students let their shaped waters hover over the fountain before releasing their magic energy from them. The water lost form and splashed back into the fountain. The master began to lecture, **"Now we're going to try to move the fountain's water around. You do this by concentrating on the water and willing it to go which way you want. Now watch how it goes."**Everyone watched as he demonstrated the Water Control's other ability by making the fountain water course around the moonlight dragon statue like a river. He soon stopped the flow and told the students, **"Now each one of you at a time is going to take a try at the spell, since too many doing it at the same time would prevent the water from moving too much due to a tug-o-war over control on the water."** He looked at Minerva and said, **"Well start with you. Focus on the water and move any way you want it."**

**"Okay, I got it,"** the woman said. She stared at the water and willed it to run over to the left until the head was barely hiding behind the statue. Then she made it run in the opposite direction and went full circle this time. After Minerva finished controlling the water, everybody else had their turn performing the second part of the lesson. The woman watched how they went about went about moving the water around.

The last person to try out the spell was the boy who made the water run around the statue, before he decided to play a prank and made the water throw itself at Minerva, a dragon, and a man next to her. They were all splashed wet as the blonde screamed in reaction to the surprise attack, while the dragon flinched back and the man went, **"****Whoa!"** The two humans felt cold and uncomfortable with their clothes soaking wet. The boy pointed and laughed at them.

The boy may have found his prank amusing, but his victims certainly didn't and neither did Gynast. The water master scolded the boy, **"****Young man, we're having a magic training in session. You can play your little games later."** The boy stopped laughing and stood quietly in shame. The water dragon turned to the wet students and informed them, **"****You know, there's water inside your clothes and on your scales. You can use the water control spell to get it out."**

Minerva and the others thought that was a very convenient way of using the spell. She and the man used their magic to remove the water from their clothes, until they became dry again. The water formed into spheres and they let them sink back into the fountain. The dragon didn't return his water sphere, but rather flung it at the boy's face to splash him with in payback for having been wet. **"****Ugh!"** the boy cried in annoyance as he squeezed his eyes shut to keep the cold liquid from getting into them. The students laughed at how funny and cute that was.

The boy wiped the water from his face before he used his magic to splash some water back at the dragon in retaliation. He also ended up wetting a girl a few years older than his age. She, too, got irked and splashed the water back at the boy. A blonde guy saw how fun this was and called to everyone for a game, **"Let's have a splash, everyone!"** So everybody used their water control spell to throw the fountain's water at each other. At first, some were mad at having to feel the cold and dampness on their clothes and scales, but then they quickly knew that they could use their magic to get dry again. The students laughed as they all had fun in the little game of their's. Minerva observed all the smiles on the faces of both humans and dragons and thought how this may bring the two races closer to one another.

The game went on for a short while until the humans started to feel tired from expending nearly all of their magic energy. Gynast noticed that they have stopped splashing water and decided to end the game. **"****Alright everyone, that's enough for today. I see that some of you are exhausted from using the water control too much,"** he said.

One guy out of the group asked, **"****So how come the dragons are still able to go on, but we humans can only that stuff for a short time?"** He had seen how energetic the dragons still were after the humans became tired and he was envious because of that.

Gynast explained, **"****Well that's because first-time magic users such as yourselves will have a small capacity of magic energy at the start. But it'll grow eventually the more you practice and use magic."** Then he warned them in a serious tone, **"****Since you humans are exhausted, I would recommend you all rest first before trying to use magic again. If you ever were to spend too much of it, you would fall unconscious if death doesn't take you first.**" Minerva got scared at the fact that magic had a risk of death to it. It sounded like she needed to be responsible with this power or else she would face the consequence. The water master said to them, **"****Now I would have taught you humans the final part of the water control spell, but since some of you are drained, you'll just have to watch how we dragons do it so that you can get the idea."** After using his magic to transfer the water from the students and ground back into the fountain, he looked at the dragons and explained the next lesson, **"****Now for the final part of the water control spell, you're going to create a wall of magic energy and sink it into the water. Think of it like putting a glass in a filled-up sink to split one water body into two. With that wall in the water, you can now push much of the water back and leave an empty space where it used to be. Here, I'll show you what I mean."** He separated the water and pushed both ends away from each other to create a spot void of the liquid. After everybody got the idea on what the spell should be like, Gynast reunited the water and told the dragon students, **"****Now we'll start practicing this one at a time again."** He looked to the waterhorse dragon and told him to go first. After the waterhorse succeeded at the spell, the other dragon went next. One dragon after another took their turns at the spell until everybody was done.

After all the dragons practiced their next spell, Gynast said to them, **"Well done students, you all did a good job with the spell. Keep practicing everything I have taught you and you will have them memorized in your head."** Then he spoke to the humans as well, **"And that goes for the rest of you as well. Try this spell at home for yourself after you've regained your energy. We will try this spell again next week, so that we can see what you humans have learned from observation. Anyway, class is hereby dismissed. I will see you all again next time. Right now, I have other people back at the City Hall to go and teach. So you all take care and have a blessed day."** The students went their separate ways, while Minerva headed back to the entrance of the City Hall to wait for Drake. The woman stood in front of the door for only less than a minute as Drake had immediately flew into sight with Ronan riding on his back.

The dragon laded gracefully as Ronan asked with a smirk, **"Class over?"**

Minerva nodded and said, **"****Yep!"**

**"Where do you want to go now?"** the assassin asked.

The woman thought about where to go next. She could go back to the festival to see what else was there, but she would have to buy another ticket first to enter again. Since she had already spent money, she would have to put that decision off. She thought about showing Ronan around her house, so that she can tell him where the rooms are and which one he will be sleeping in. **"****How about home?"** she said.

Ronan held a hand out to her ad she took it as he helped her onto Drake's back behind him. **"Just say where to go, Drake can handle the rest,"** the assassin told her.

Minerva started picturing in her head how they would get from the city hall to her home. **"Let's see... Just give me a minute here,"** she said. She thought about the direction she went from her house to the carnival and then to the city hall. It took about two minutes until she finally got it mapped out. Then she gave them what she thought were the right directions to her home, **"Alright, I need you to fly back towards the carnival and then you head west until you get to a small intersection and then you turn north until you see a modern-looking house."** The woman's home was among the few that hadn't been damaged during the spell and it was most likely because she never shown any sort of mistreatment towards the dragons. Because the house made it out okay, it never needed to be redesigned in Aquarian fashion. Drake was getting a running start for lift-off before he jumped into the air to fly. He showed off some flying tricks and made the ride more fun. **"Whoo!"** Minerva screamed out of excitement.

Soon, they saw the house in sight and the dragon swooped down and landed lightly. Ronan hopped off first before he turned to help Minerva down off Drake's back. **"Watch your step,"** he said with a smile.

The humans walked to the door as Minerva said to Ronan, **"Since we're here, I guess I should show you around my house, so that you'll know where everything is at."** She unlocked the door and they went inside where the assassin started looking at the place. The living room was at the entrance with a flat-screen TV sitting on the entertainment center, a beige leather couch, a bookshelf, and a coffee table. Minerva pointed to the next room that was in combination of a dining room and kitchen. **"Over there is the kitchen and right past the glass door is the exercise room,"** she explained as she led him to the kitchen. The exercise room had a treadmill, a 5 lb dumbbell, and an exercise bike. Minerva had these equipment for fitness whenever she wanted to exercise.

Ronan smirked seeing the gym equipment. **"Not much but it'll do for endurance,"** he said with a smirk at her.

The woman nodded and replied, **"Well as long these things have some use, then I'm happy for you."**

Then Ronan looked outside the window as he asked, **"So where is this garage that Drake is sleeping at?"**

**"Oh, it's at the backyard,"** Minerva answered. **"Want to see it?"** she offered.

The assassin shook his head and declined, **"Nah, I'm good."** Then he went back to the living room area and sat down on the couch. **"It's a nice home. How long have you had it?"** he asked curiously.

Minerva answered, **"For 19 years; that's my whole life. My father died years ago in a car accident and my mother passed away last year. So now I've been trying to make a living to take care of myself and make money to pay up my bills and save money for college classes. It's really hard work when you're young and alone without a degree." **

The man sighed before looking to her with a frown. **"I'm sorry to hear that. I know what it's like to lose family,"** he said. He got up and moved to the window looking outside.

It was apparent that Minerva's past had stirred up a sad memory from his past; something the girl hadn't meant to do. She had to get back to showing him around the house in order to take his mind off it. **"Me too, Ronan,"** she said, feeling a bit sad. Then she dropped the sad mood and said, **"But anyway, let me show you the other rooms."** She opened the door to the laundry room and said, **"This is the laundry room. If you ever need to have your clothes washed, feel free to use the washing machine and the dryer."** She pointed to the cabinets above the two sleek white appliances and said, **"The bleach, detergents, and fabric softener are in these cabinets."**

Ronan smirked and said, **"Well, I can certainly take some time to clean my clothes."** He chuckled at his own comment as Minerva giggled along with him.

Then she led him up the stairs, where she would show him the guest room. **"This is the guest room. Whenever I have visitors who would like to stay, I always let them use that room,"** the woman said. The assassin went inside and unbuckled all of his weapon belts and pouches, laying them out on a table, leaving his robes hanging freely off of him. He started to remove them, but only as far as keeping his pants on. His entire back covered in scars and old wound marks. Minerva stared at them in admiration as she thought _'He really is a fighter.' _Her finger touched one of the scars and traced it over like a kid coloring over the lines. **"Ooh,"** she moaned. Her finger went over to the next scar and the next one after that. For some reason they looked quite fascinating to her.

The assassin looked over his shoulder before he turned to face her and said, **"Old wounds. Each one a different version of the same story."** His muscular body wasn't just covered in scars on the back but even his front had an equal number of long cuts across and diagonal. His right eye had a small scar running down through it but the eye itself was undamaged. **"When you live a life of always fighting... You earn your marks quite easily and you learn from each new one,"** he said looking at her eyes. His eyes were blue like the color of the sea touching the sand, light blue. His skin was also well tanned, and his hair was as black as night. His whole appearance was rather fascinating in Minerva's opinion.

**"****So what do you fight, Ronan?"** she asked, wondering who did this to him and how he managed to get the scars.

As the woman traced the front's scars, the assassin answered regretfully, **"Anything and anyone that tried to harm or kill me. I've fought too many people and killed more than half of them. For every life I took, I gained a scar. It stays as a reminder of what I did and why I did it."**

Minerva felt sympathy for Ronan. **"That kind of sounds like a brutal life,"** she said softly. **"I'd feel the same way too, if I was forced to kill someone."**

The man looked at her eyes and met her gaze as if he was captured by them.**"It's been years since anyone has shown me the kindness you have."**

**"What about your friend, Drake?"** asked the woman. Surely his friend would kind to him as well, right?

Ronan smiled and said, **"I meant someone human. Drake is always kind. He's over three hundred years old and very protective of me. Ever since I met him he's been keeping me alive."**

**"****Oh! Okay,"** Minerva said, giving a brief nod.

The assassin resumed, **"The only other human that showed me any kindness was my teacher. The man who taught me all of my skills. He pushed me till my muscles neared their breaking point. Trained me till my bones cracked. He made me who I am. Now Drake is all I have left."** He paused to breathe before continuing, **"As a child and as a pre-teen I feared death. Now I fear nothing on this world." **

The woman said, **"****You sound pretty confident, Ronan. I suppose I could suggest another** **career for you to try out in town."** She raised a pointing finger upward as if she discovered a bright idea and suggested, **"****I know, why not be a city guard or a policeman? Surely, these jobs could use a fighter such as yourself."**

The man smiled, grabbing a fresh shirt and sliding it on. **"No,"** he responded. **"Guard and police follow the laws of the town. I follow my own, it's how I do my work best. It's how I saved you and killed that murderer."** Recalling when he had to save her life on those three occasions.

**"So you're a vigilante then,"** said Minerva. She knew vigilantism was just as heroic, but she also knew that it was frowned upon by the law as well as some members of society. Which made her wonder... **"Tell me; have you gotten chased or arrested by law enforcers?"** she asked. She imagined that kind of scenario happened at least once or more times. It may also explain why people didn't trust him. A good man getting shunned by society for doing a good deed sounded kind of sad.

**"More than once,"** Ronan chuckled. He stepped around past her and went over to the window. **"I've done many things that would look bad to the eyes of some people. But the eyes of the majority is what matters."**

**"And what do they think? I mean of your actions,"** asked Minerva, referring to the majority. She guessed that maybe many people thought of him as a hero.

Ronan looked to her with a smirk. **"Some people have wanted me gone or killed for things I have done. They either gave up, were killed themselves, or... who knows,"** he said, shrugging. **"Minerva, I appreciate your kindness. You have more respect and honor than most... but I don't think I should stay long. I'm not exactly the safest person to be around. I'm... not capable of having someone special... not with the life I live...the risk... it's too great of one."**

**"Not safe?"** asked Minerva confused. **"Sure you kill dangerous people and get the law upset with you, but why would you consider yourself too dangerous for me to be around with?"  
**  
The assassin sighed ad answered **"Because you could end up in the crossfire by accident. I've met many people and some of them have died because they were involved in what I did, and I lived with that guilt on my conscious. If you were ever killed... I couldn't handle it."** He spoke truthfully with her, **"I can't handle the guilt of another person dying because of my inability to stop it."  
**  
The woman felt sadness and sympathy for him. His backstory was beginning to sound more tragic. All this fighting and death; was it really fair to have Ronan's life be like that for a long time? **"Ronan, do ever hope for the day where you won't have to kill anymore? I mean you already got revenge on the men who killed your family. Wouldn't it be alright to settle down and find a peaceful career change?"** she asked.

The man sighed again and told her, **"Minerva I just... I just can't... I would feel out of place in a 'career change' as you say. I can't change who I am; what I've become. A man who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. I've lived my life that way since I was a child; it's who I am. I am born of the desert heat, forged in the cold mountains. I don't carry weapons; I am one. A weapon can't change."** He sounded broken and unsure what to do with his life.

Being the optimistic person she is, Minerva refused to think that he'll always be this way his whole life. **"Don't say that!"** she blurted. Then she continued in a softer tone, "**Don't say that you can't ever change. It doesn't have to be that way, Ronan. You turn from being a weapon to something new, but only if you make the effort. It may seem hard for you to get out of your lifestyle, but it's definitely not impossible. If you were take things slowly at a time to adjust to something new, then a career change will be possible."** She smiled a little and said in an encouraging tone, **"I'll be there to help you. We'll find a way to make it all possible, what do you say, Ronan?"**

The assassin looked at her in confusion and asked, **"Why? Why are you looking for a hope of change in someone like me? I don't understand."  
**  
The woman answered, **"Because everybody changes, even to a small degree. No one can remain the same forever."** She was quite cheerful in believing that Ronan can learn how to compensate for all the lives lost in his involvement. **"And besides, you were moping about being a living weapon and thinking that's all you'll ever will be. I couldn't let you be sad like this all your life. So I'm going to help you break out of that boundary and learn some new skills, so that you can be more than just a killer."** She listed the possibilities as she suggested, **"Maybe you learn to be a doctor, an engineer, a teacher, or maybe an activist for a really good cause."**

Ronan smirked with renewed hope in his eyes and said, **"Thank you. No one's tried to have such faith in me before. I'll... think it over. If I may I'd like to get some naptime."** He sat down on the bed, rubbing his face. He was clearly exhausted.

Minerva smiled at him, feeling happy and glad that she was helpful to him. **"Okay, I'll see you later,"**she said. She left the guest room and went downstairs to the backdoor, where she went outside to check on Drake. She found him, laying inside the garage. The woman walked over to him and asked, **"So Drake, how's your new home?"**

The copper dragon replied in joy, **"Wonderful! It's quite spacious in here."**

The woman felt glad for him and said, **"I'm glad you like it.** **Anyway,** **if you** **need anything just give me a** **roar, okay?"**Taking consideration of Ronan, she added, **"But not too loud, okay? Your friend is sleeping."**

Drake nodded and replied, **"Okay, I understand."** Then Minerva turned and went back inside the house. She went over to the cupboard, took out a pink cereal, and filled it with water from the sink. With it, she began to practice the water spells she learned today.

* * *

**Author's Note:** NOTE TO READERS: Don't do what Minerva did! Don't invite strangers into your home! It's dangerous to do so in real-life. He/she could turn out to be a bad guy and kill you or other bad things. The only reason I did that in the RP was so that Minerva could keep interacting with LordTorch's characters.

Also, the part where Minerva mentions her dead parents; I think I either wrote that unnecessary dialogue by accident during the RP or I needed some way to get past the writer's block. I can't remember which one that is.

Gynast (c) me  
Woltar (c) Sai (a.k.a. Eveeoni on DeviantArt)


	23. The Evil Necromancer

**Chapter 22: The Evil Necromancer**

The new pygmy soldiers, using the stealth skills taught by the Vulture Horde, snuck into the next targeted refugee camp to analyze offenses and defenses of the place. Soon after their task was done, they sent their reports to Aeolus via telepathy and told him that the camp's defenders were only weapon users and none of them can use magic. _'Good, another easy to destroy village. Get out of the village, so that I can give the humans the deadly first strike,'_ the disaster dragon said to them. The pygmies quietly left the camp without any of the humans spotting them. One guy almost found one of them after the pygmy tripped and fell, but luckily his female ally pulled him over to her before he was seen. Once they were all out and at a safe distance, the pygmies told Aeolus they got out. Without any dragon in the way and at risk for death, Aeolus cast a tornado on the refugee camp and sucked in the humans and objects into the vortex. Lutarn summoned thunder clouds and had the lightning bolts strike the humans dead inside the tornado.

The spring dragons and flower pygmies surrounding the outskirts of the camp blew out sleep-inducing pollen. The pollen would be pulled in by the force of the tornado and tranquilize any escaping human it came across. This would allow the other dragons to spot them out easily and kill them quickly. The leaf pygmies stayed hidden among the bushes and trees, so that their brown scales and leafy wings would camouflage be mistaken as being parts of these plants. When humans came across them, the leaf pygmies would ambush them and kill them by the throats. The wasp pygmies worked together with the honeycomb pygmies' bees and stung the refugees to death, whether by being stabbed in vital points or by allergies. The other dragons worked in the way they did best.

Later after raid was completed, the horde was successful in annihilating the entire camp. Aeolus looked at everyone and said, **"Well done, Vulture Horde. Another nest of demons has been exterminated. And you recruits have done an amazing job for your first time."** The former slaves felt pride in their accomplishment as beginners. **"Now we will celebrate this victory by feasting on our enemies. Everyone eat to your hearts' content,"** he said. Then the dragons went to eat up the refugees.

* * *

After flying for an hour with wind magic boasting both Atlas's and Axle's speed, her wings started feeling worn out. The magi decided to take a break and descended below the trees to touch ground. Kylie and Danielle slide down their aunt's tail and went to stretch their legs and arms to soothe the kinks. Axle landed next to the magi and switched to human form before he sat down on the grass with his eyes close. Atlas was about to ask Axle how much farther they got until they reached the mountain, when she saw two men armed with spears walking through the woods. _'Oh crap, they must be dragon hunters,'_ she thought, feeling endangered from the possible that they might see the dragons and try to kill them. It would be possible to either fight them head on or take the group somewhere else, but Atlas had something else in mind and it was probably a good time to try it. She looked to Axle and asked, **"Hey Axle, want to teach me how to turn into a human?"** If she could learn the spell to turn herself into a human at any time, then the Atlas wouldn't need to avoid humans at all times during her journey as she would simply blend in and pass through without her dragon form attracting hostility. And if possible she would cast the same spell onto her nieces so that all three would go on by safely. And when these men see them in human forms, they would get welcomed into their settlement where the group would rest and eat.

The man answered, **"It is no simple task, and just recently I have just mastered it so I can fully stain this form. And Atlas it would be easier to teach your nieces than you, for it requires a weight switching and size change. But I guess I can try to teach you three how to do it, but it will take a while for you to stain the form for more than an hour the few couple of times without flaws. By flaws; I mean wings, tails, claws, scales, or skin tone."** He paused to breathe for a bit before he continued, **"The only thing you have to do is imagine yourself; kind of like picture. You need precise details on the figure such as age, weight, height, length, hair color, eye color; basically everything. Then, change it to a human form in your mind with precise details as well. Then, channel energy into it and you should feel the energy channel through you. That's really about it, but it came to me like seconds nature so it might not work."**

What Axle said sounded like the transformation was a bit harder than Atlas originally thought it was. For one, she imagined being in a lighter and upright bipedal body would feel awkward to her as she would be new to moving her forelegs-turned arms around and walking without a tail to balance herself. For two, since this spell required details, she needed to avoid messing it up or otherwise the humans will see through her. **"Well Axle, however the spell works, I need to try it out right now or else we're going to have some trouble with these humans over there,"** the dragoness said, looking at the direction where the hunters are.

The sisters have listened to this conversation and Kylie asked warily, **"Aunt Atwas, are these humans bad?"**

The magi answered, **"I don't know, Kylie. But we need to take caution just in case."** She reared up on her two hind legs and imagined herself as a Solomese woman. She decided on that form as had spent most of her life in Solomos and it would be a reminder of her birth continent. After a minute of picking out the physical details and clothes, Atlas started to transform and shrink down in size. Her reddish-orange scales turned into brown skin, medium-length black hair grew on her head, purple dragon eyes turned into black human ones, feet turned into orange shoes, and the forelegs became arms. The wings, tail, and frills disappeared. As the skeleton rearranged itself for the legs to be aligned with the spine, Atlas felt herself leaning back and fell over as she cried, **"Whoa!"**

The hunters stopped their tracks in response to the sound they heard. One of them asked, **"Was that a woman?"**

The other man said, **"Sounds like it."** Wanting to see if this "woman" needed any help, the men walked in the direction of the sound.

The sisters looked over their aunt's new form in amazement. Danielle said,** "Wow Aunt Atwas, looks like a human!"**

They were also concerned about their aunt having fallen over as Kylie asked, **"Are you okay, Aunt Atwas?"**

The dragon-turned-human replied, **"Yeah, I'm fine. Just let me get up."** She tried to get up by lifting her torso, but the sacrum felt stiff as if her body's supposed to be straight like a stick. _'Damn, I forgot that humans can bend over their hips,'_ she thought. She fixed that by magically changing the lower half of the body's skeletal structure so that she was able to bend. Then she got back up with success this time and stood on her two feet. But when she did, the feeling of being in human form felt strange and awkward just like she predicted. For one, she felt inclined to put her arms to the ground and walk like a quadruped animal, but then that wouldn't be human-like at all. Second, her back and behind felt funny without wings and a tail. Lastly, the world looked a bit bigger in human perspective. Atlas looked at herself and murmured, **"So this is what being human feels like."**

The hunters reached the group and asked, **"Ma'am, we heard a scream nearby. Was that you?"**

Atlas looked at these hunters in front of her and thought about how to talk to dragon-unfriendly humans. **"Um, yeah. I just fell over that's all,"** she said. She looked down to her nieces and attempted a telepathic connection with them. She hoped it worked well in human form just as she did as a dragon. _'Kylie, Danielle, don't say anything to these humans. You need to pretend to be my slaves until I turn back into a dragon, okay? That means no calling me Aunt Atlas,'_ she told them.

_'Yes, Aunt Atlas,'_ the nieces said.

She turned her attention back to the men, while continuing the telepathy. _'I mean it, don't or you'll get us all into trouble. Just call me master, alright?'_ she told them.

The nieces spoke the corrective response this time, _'Yes master.'_

_'Good!' _the woman said.

One of the two hunters asked the "humans", **"So what are you two doing out here in these woods? You know it's dangerous with all these dragons running loose and attacking people."**

Axle walked forward to step between the group and the hunters. With a simple shrug, he said, **"It's very simple; we are traveling to the mountain to the north to help out a farmer that is an old friend of hers. He needs to harvest crops for the market here soon and have a huge order, so she brought along some dragon hatchlings to also help them out. I'm just the hired hand to protect them on her journey to see her friend.****"** Atlas watched the "man" put both his hand back behind his back as one hand slide over the hilt of a knife that was tucked in his belt behind. **"I would be happy if you would go back to your business as we return back to ours journey,"** Axle said in the calm tone he always spoke with.

The hunter gave a short nod with a smile and said, **"Oh, okay then. You all have a safe trip out there, okay."** He gave them a thumbs-up and a wink for good luck.

**"We will, don't you worry about it,"** said Atlas, who returned a smile. The hunters were turning to leave and resume their hunt, but the "woman" was not about to let them go without an important question she needed an answer to. **"Wait,"** she said. The men stopped and looked back at the "woman" to listen to what she had to say. **"Is there a place where the other humans are to the north?"** she asked. She figured a short pit-stop and rest would do the group some good since Axle hasn't gotten to eat the food she got from the grocery store.

The other man answered, **"Sure there is! I think it's just three miles and a half away from here."**

Atlas replied, **"Okay, thanks you guys."**

**"No problem, miss! We're just happy to help a nice lady like you,"** said the hunter. Then the men turned to leave as the older one said, **"Come on, Bobby. Let's get back to hunting that deer."**

Once the humans had disappeared into the distance, the "woman" looked at herself from her arms to her legs. **"Right, let's see how I can go on as a human,"** she said to herself. She took a few steps forward, but the way she walked was rather strange. Her feet had taken big steps and her upper body bobbing left and right depending on which foot was in the front.

The sisters watched their aunt's funny movement and were confused by this. This was not how they remembered Yukki and Henry walking. Danielle asked the male "human", **"Axle, is this how humans walk?"**

The "man" smiled a bit and answered, **"In the beginning of their lives, they do; but after a bit of practices, they walk fine, even up running as well." **Atlas stopped "walking" as Axle and the Firestars looked up at the sky to see a small drake flying overhead and circling a bit. Her shiny blue scales were reflexive to the sun as the drake land in the same cleaning near the group. **"Hello there, Sirath,"** the "man" greeted the drake as she bowed her head to him.

Sirath spoke in a calm, regretful voice, **"Lord Axle, I'm sorry for having to find you, but under an oath your father had me take in case of emergency. He had me come to deliver his soul sphere to you in case of his death, so Spinx did not get a hold of it."** She reached her paw out that had a bright blue sphere in it that held water in it. Axle wrapped his hand over the sphere as Sirath held out another sphere that was a bright pink sphere with the same color of water in it. Axle's other hand wrapped around the other sphere, too. **"And I'm also sorry to say your mother have met the same fate along with your eldest brother. But under your father's oath, I was to deliver the two spheres to you if they both happen to die. As for your brother's sphere, it was noted to be hidden in the family castle,"** the drake continued on as the man's head hang down while tears ran off his cheeks.

In a quiet sorrowful tone, Axle asked, **"What of Mekarth and Jura, Sirath? What happen to them?"**

The drake simply looked down and answered, **"Your sister was captured by Spinx and your younger brother left the city after the attack and went into hiding. Your uncle now controls the city of Shadow Wind as the dragon lord, and the city has fallen into darkness. Your uncle was the one to kill your father with Spinx's help. I'm sorry; but right after it happened, I grabbed you father's sphere and your mother shoved her sphere in my paws and said she was going to stop them from following me."**

Atlas growled in contempt for the uncle. It was a serious taboo for a dragon to kill one of their own clanmates as family was one of the most sacred values to any dragon. _'Unbelievable! I'd never thought I would hear about a dragon that would murder his own brother and then rule others with an iron claw. He's just as bad as those rotten humans,'_ she thought.

Sirath continued, **"I must go now, I will wait for your return after your journey to Trident Mountain, as it was the last thing your father had asked you."** With that, she took off to the air and flew back in the direction she came from.

Atlas looked at the lord with sympathy as she watched him pocket the two spheres. His hand fell to his side as he still looked at the ground in sadness. She knew what the man was feeling right now at this moment. Taking slow and awkward steps, she went next to the man and said, **"Axle, I'm sorry about your family."**

The lord simply wiped his eyes from the tears that have gathered up in his eyes as he looks up at the woman. There was sadness in his eyes, even more was fear. **"There are a few things you will need to know before you follow along with me anymore. The full truth that have yet to be said to an outsider of the family or the guard; but if you wish to follow me anymore, you must know,"** Axle told her.

**"Okay, I'm listening,"** said Atlas. She predicted that she might hear something tough and serious, but she was going to try not to let that dissuade her from being around the shape-shifter she vowed to protect.

**"As you may have guess, I'm a dragon lord in Shadow Wind,"** Axle said before he took a breath. **"My uncle was banished from the city of Shadow Wind by my grandpa, who soon died because of my uncle. After that my father took the rule as dragon lord and protector of Shadow Wind. My uncle tried year after year to gain the title from my father and failed to do so, but my father could not kill him."** Then he turned his back to her and continued, **"During the time of my father's protection, the amount of human and dragon slaves increased, and my father could do nothing about it nor could any of the other dragon lords. The dragon lord oath involves they could not interfere, kill anything that was not food nor that poses a threat, and they could not risk anyone else's life in exchange for the death of another or to save their own lives."**

The woman frowned in dismay and thought, _'What the hell kind of oath is that? Who made something stupid like this and why?'_ She thought about how so many slaves could have been set free if not for the dragon load oath holding the father back.

Danielle asked, **"Why not?"** The hatchlings found it sad that the slaves were stuck as slaves with no way out.

The man looked to ground briefly before explaining more, **"Each dragon lord soul is placed into a soul sphere to keep necromancers from getting their hands on the soul of the protectors. In order for that to happen, they must first die by another dragon and then must be protected until the soul is released and is forced into a glass sphere. After that, the wounds are healed on the dragon and the sphere is placed close to the body as a small amount of the soul is replace inside the body to bring the person back to life. This may sound like necromancy, but it is not, for the spell is only performed by other dragon lords and a single priest."** Axle's head fell even further as he said in shame, **"My soul is not in a sphere for I was not the eldest, nor was even close to my sister's strength, let alone my brother's strength."**

The Firestars felt pity for the weaker brother as Atlas thought, _'Well damn, that's sucks.'_

He finally turned back to Atlas and told her, **"Now you know; and whatever decision you make from here on out, I will not stop you."**

Seeing how everything didn't sound as bad she thought it would be, Atlas said, **"I have to say your story's an interesting one, Axle. But it's not going to change my decision. I'm still sticking with you to the end. And no matter what Spinx throws at us, I'll be the one to thwart him and his men and zombies."** She puffed her chest out strong and stiff as she said confidently, "**Besides, I'm a dragon champion. I've been a champ in tournaments for decades straight and I ain't never lost a fight. Even when I've fought dark-type dragons."**

Axle gave a small nod to Atlas and asked, **"Well than, mind me asking why you are a champion dragon? I only heard champion dragons were gladiators..."** The lord slowed down his speech into a brief silence as his expression turned serious.

Atlas frowned and went on to explain her blood-stained history that she wasn't proud of, **"Well you see, Axle. When I was a slave, I was entered into—"**

Then she got interrupted when Axle looked her dead in the eyes and asked, **"You wouldn't happen to be the Firestar Atlas, would you? Because if so, well, you're a bit famous among Shadow Wind. ****Damn! That will give Spinx more of a reason to come for us, so we are-"** A small click was heard from the distance. Suddenly, the dragon lord ran in front of the woman to shield her from an arrow aimed at her. The barbed bolt pierces his body right thought the center of his chest. Axle fell to his knees as blood started to come from his mouth.

The family looked at him in alarm and fear for his life. **"Axle!"** Atlas and Danielle cried at the same time, while Kylie just placed her hands to her head and let out a horrified scream.

A dark hooded man armed with a crossbow appeared from the shadows and stood in front of the wounded "man". **"Damn; was hoping to hit the lady friend of yours. She will make a nice collection to my undead,"** the attacker said.

As the dragon lord struggled to stand, he asked, **"Spinx, how did... you caught... us so fast?"**

The woman looked at him and thought,_ 'So that's Spinx. His looks are just as sinister as his personality.' _The hood on his robes kept his face from being seen as it was heavily shadowed by it blocking the light, thus giving him the eerie appearance he had.

The necromancer explained with a bit of an evil laugh, **"Well it's very simple. All I did was hide my scent from you and followed you in the air on the back of a sky drake, and even passed Sirath on the way here. I had a nice 'chat' with her; she even told me where to find you."**

Atlas cursed herself for not being more attentive to the air as well as she had to the ground. _'Damn it, I should have checked behind me, too!'_ she thought with a fist that she had instinctively clenched without notice.

Spinx threatened them, **"And I would not try to do anything because there are dragons around here that are under my control. You are familiar with two of them: Lord Eve and Lord Tork."** The necromancer seemed to be amused by this and saw Axle starting to get up off his knees and ripping the bolt out of his chest.

Blood spilled over the ground as the dragon lord dropped the bolt and sweat started to gather on his forehead. Axle started to heavily breathe as more blood was lost from his body, as his body start to slowly heal itself. **"Atlas... if you... have a... trick left... now would... be great..."** he said while breathing heavily as the two undead lords walked out from behind the shadows Spinx came from. **"NOW ATLAS!"** the "man" screamed on top of his lungs. The two dragon lords, both black and red-scaled dragons, had an acid red blood color drool on the ground. Their blood red eyes looked right at the group and looked ready to attack.

The woman looked at him and said, **"Right, safety first!"** She pictured an image of the spring cave she used to sleep on the night of the Spell and teleported her nieces and Axle to that place for safety. With them out of the way, Atlas would be free to fight Spinx and the dragon lords with no harm done to her family and friend. She figured that if she could kill the necromancer, then Axle's quest can continue peacefully without anyone hunting him down. The woman scowled at the necromancer as she transformed back into a dragon and said, **"Alright you clown; it's time we get this show on the road!"** She started off by engulfing herself with a blinding light aura and then casting a barrage of light lasers at him and the lords.

**"Clown?!"** Spinx laugh at the word as both the dragon lords were impaled by light lasers, protecting their master. Soon after one lord cast a spell that dispelled the magi's light aura, the other casts a Seal spell in the area. **"Honey, these two are already dead and feel no pain, and they can't be destroyed that easily by a little spell like that,"** the necromancer mocked her. **"Oh, and you're trap here now. That seal spell keeps you from teleporting yourself out or flying out until this one here is destroyed,"** he explained smugly while pointing to Lord Eve. **"And I guess you don't know lord dragons are powerful by themselves and hard to even kill,"** Spinx said as he drew his sword and swung in the air as a river of bones came from the ground and head straight for Atlas. **"And no one can help you now!"** he yelled.

Then Atlas dodged to the side to avoid the bones and roared, **"Hah, I don't need anybody's help! I could go on until you and these bozos of yours are destroyed."** Then she cast a fire beam spell at Spinx. She wasn't sure how tough her enemies were, but the magi has survived tough a lot of times. She wasn't going to let this be any different from all her previous fights.

* * *

At the spring cave, Danielle went over to Axle and looked up at his wound. **"Are yew going to be okay, Axle?"** she asked in concern.

The dragon lord leaned against the wall and slide down as blood started soaked his shirt. He swallowed hard as he seemed to grow weaker. **"No, I'm afraid Spinx poisoned the bolt. And unless I get some source of energy, I will black out and being bleed to death,"** Axle said as he breathed harder. **"There are some things you can do; if you can find some moss and maybe bring some water, I can slow my bleeding down,"** he groaned in pain.

**"Oh no!"** Danielle cried in worry. She wondered how she was going to find these two things if she didn't know where they are.

Kylie saw the hot spring nearby and pointed to it, **"Look! I found water!"**

The whiptail saw the spring too and became happy. **"Yay! Water!"** she shouted as she bounced up and down. She looked up back at the man and said, **"Come on, Axle. Wet's go get some water."** She bounded her way over to it.

The man struggled to push himself up off the ground and brace himself against the wall as he slowly walked over to the hot spring. He sat down at the edge and slides his white dress shirt over his body and looked at the arrow wound for a bit. Then he gripped one end of a sleeve with one hand and then bit the collar of the shirt. He removed the knife he had and cut the sleeve from the shirt before doing the same with the other sleeve. He turned one into a small square and put it into the water. Then he squeezed it almost dry and went to wash the blood from his chest. He turned the other sleeve into two strips by running his blade down the sleeve on both sides. With his wound cleaned and everything ready, the man placed the back of the knife in his mouth to hold onto as he placed the patch over the wound. Then with a quick hand, he tied the strips over it and tightens it up. **"That will slow the bleeding, but not forever,"** Axle said under his heavy breath as he looked into the hot springs before diving in. The hatchlings watched him swim after a catfish. With one quick motion, he stabbed the fish right thought the head as the splash scared all the fish away from the source. The catfish flared around, but was out match by Axle's speed and he yanked the prey from the water on the ground. He cut a small part from the fish and ate it. Then he slides the 95% fish over to the hatchlings as his white magic healed more of his wound. The sisters looked at the whiskered fish's peculiar appearance. Danielle giggled at how funny the fish's face looked. **"Well, that's better than nothing and it's energy will keep me alive now. You two have the rest, I can get more here in a bit so I can eat,"** Axle said he leaned against the wall again.

Danielle sniffed the catch as Kylie looked at it curiously. Then the whiptail licked it and got a mild sweet taste from it. Finding it delicious, Danielle started eating it. Seeing how the whiptail liked it, Kylie decided to bite into the fish as well. But doing so, gave her a muddy taste on her tongue. The balloon hatchling spat out the morsel and said, **"Yuck!"**

The whiptail swallowed her piece and exclaimed, **"Mmm, this is yummy!"**

Then suddenly, the dragon lord pushed himself off the wall and stood up. He spoke in an agitated tone, **"Damn idiot, she's going to get herself killed by the two lords. You two stay here; I'll go get Atlas back before something happen."** He walked over to the edge of the cave and told the sisters, **"I promise that Atlas will come back alive."**

**"Okay!"** they both said, thinking that he really would do it. Then he changed into a dragon and flew off away from the spring cave.

* * *

Spinx swung his sword up as a bone wall protected him this time from the fire beam. The bones slowly turned black and then to ash as the beam ended. **"You should have asked your 'boyfriend' who these two are and what they are capable of,"** the necromancer laughed at Atlas.

The dragoness growled defiantly at the necromancer, **"They're nobody you need to know!"** There was no way on earth she was ever going to let that vile man touch her nieces.

**"I already feel bored of you, I feel like carving now,"** Spinx said as the two dragon lords both started to cast chain magic from their wide arrange of spells. The chains came from all side and angles, hoping to snare the magi with it cold metal, but then she cast a powerful wind barrier to blow them back away. Even though, she was wearing armor, Atlas wasn't going to take any chances getting hit. Then she counterattacked by casting swift wind blades at the lords, which tore into their decayed flesh a bit. She knew they would not feel any pain, but that doesn't mean the unfeeling weren't immune to damage. Atlas could cast as many wind blades as she wanted to cut her enemies up. She would tear them through flesh one layer at a time until she would reach the bone. When she gets to the bone, then she would go to destroy it so that she would disable a body part the bone was connected to. That was going to be one of her strategy plans; slice and dice them and then cripple and weaken them. Spinx shook his head as if he pitied her and said, **"Sad really, it will be a lot more to even stop them."**

Lord Eve copied Atlas's spell and sent them right back at her, but with more power. The magi was barely holding on to protecting herself with the wind barrier. _'Damn, such power. So that's what being a dragon lord is like. If their magic is that strong, then I got to try to finish them off as quickly as possible, no matter how tough that may be,'_ she thought with her teeth bared. She thought about killing off Eve first just in case things go bad. Then she channeled her wind barrier into a tornado beam mixed with wind blades and launched it at her foe. But while she did that, some chains broke out of the ground and grabbed her limbs, tail, and neck. **"Wha?!"** Atlas muttered in surprise, for she had not been aware of the spell cast by Tork. As she struggled to break free of the chains that were trying to pull her to the ground, Spinx had cast a full barrage of bone river spell right at her. He even blocked her way by raising a wall behind her and another to the left of her.

The magi hastily tried to find an idea on what to do as the attack came closer and closer. She decided to go defensive by casting an earth wall spell. The slab of hardened soil rose from the ground and took the full blow of the bone river. The earth wall cracked and broke into pieces. Then Atlas used her earth magic to open up a hole underneath her and bring her underground. This wasn't an attempt at escape seeing as how she couldn't leave the battle, but rather to hide and attack from the unseen. The magi cast fire on the chains and had them trail all the back to Tork. She saw the bright warm glow from the edge of the hole, indicating that the lord's body got lit on fire. But the light soon dimmed as a splash of water was heard.

**"Flood that hole with water,"**Spinx was heard saying. Atlas saw water coming down into the hole from the surface. The necromancer walked over to the edge and grinned down menacingly at her. **"You're very much out-matched here, dragon. If you tell me now where you sent Axle, I might let you live,"** he bargained.

The magi growled defiantly and yelled, **"Never! I'll die before I let you harm him."** As the water reached her nose, Atlas used her earth magic to create space in the form of a tunnel, so that the water level would drop. As she did that, a few more bone rivers came down at her and hit her with a harsh blow. She was lucky, her armor had guarded against the attack, otherwise it would have been a lot worse. The magi collapsed, feeling dazed and hurt as well as seeing stars. _'Damn...'_ she thought.

A few seconds later, the water had risen higher back to the level it was before she had created space in the hole. Now Atlas had recovered a bit and had seen the water. While trying to hold her focus against the throbbing pain, she thought about creating more space; but then that wouldn't stop Eve from pouring more water into the hole to persist in trying to drown her. Atlas thought about some ideas on how she could get free of the chains binding her. She could change into her human form and then try to get out of the chains' way before they bind onto her again; or she could use her wind barrier to blow off the chains. She was about to with the second option until she remembered she could teleport. Although she was unable to teleport herself out of the fight, she could probably still teleport anywhere in the battlefield. She decided to give this one a shot by picturing the surface land above her and then trying to warp there. Atlas was now back on the surface and free of the chains. Spinx got a bit furious with her and made a hum-like growl.

The magi glared at the necromancer and growled, **"That really hurts! Let's see if you like this!"** She summoned a volley of wind blades and cast them at all three of her foes. Spinx cut across his right shoulder as he groaned in pain. Most of the wind blades sliced the undead dragons from their backs to their sides as they protected their master with their bodies.

At this point, Spinx started to laugh now, almost as if he enjoys the pain that was inflicted on him. **"It was fun game we had, but now it time to stop this little game of ours,"** he said as the seal started to get smaller at fast rate. It went passed the necromancer and the lords in mere seconds until it was centered around Atlas. The magi watched in alarm as she was unable to do anything about this. Lord Eve let the magic chains rise from the ground and pull the dragoness down as Spinx cast a bone walls around Atlas, encasing her in a box.

**"What the hell?!"** Atlas said as she struggled to free herself of the chains.

The necromancer simply smiled as he turned and started to walk away. Pretty soon, a small snap of twigs as heard in the distance. Spinx laughed again and yelled in the air, **"Next time our game happens again, dragon; it won't be with Axle so close to save you."**

"Axle? Axle's here?"

the magi asked. She wondered how the white dragon managed to get here this quick. She thought she had put him in the spring cave for safety and she thought that place was far away. But if he can get here soon, that means... _'Ah crap, we're close to Windfall,'_ she thought. Great, she was back in the land of hybrids. It was bad enough they had Spinx chasing after them; now her nieces were at risk of danger from these freakish dragon-killers. The magi hoped she wouldn't encounter any of them during the journey to Trident Mountain.

Spinx summoned a drake to carry him away in the air faster than a dragon as the lords became one with the ground again. Atlas yelled after him, **"Hey where you going? I'm not even done yet!"** As she tried to break free of the chains again, the seal spell disappeared. By then, Spinx was gone. She stopped struggling, when she smelled Axle's scent and said, **"Axle? Is that you?"**

The magi heard a facepalm as Axle said, **"It's best if you don't teleport me next time in a hot spring on top of a mountain."**

**"Huh? Why?"** asked Atlas, wondering what was wrong with teleporting him to the spring cave.

The magi turned her head around and saw the dragon lord getting closer to her and saying, **"Lord Tork doing I guess."** Axle sliced the top of the bone box off with a sword and said, **"And next time you want to risk you're life, think first about who's affected by your death, and I mean the two hatchlings. You're their family; I'm not."**

These words made the Atlas feel ashamed of herself as she thought, _'Damn he's right; what was I thinking? I'm their only family left and if I die, who's going to take care of them?'_ She had been so confident in her many victories that she thought that the end of the fight against Spinx would be no different. But then the enclosed seal spell combined with the bone box and chains proved to be a possible ensured death. If Spinx had stayed around to continue the fight, it might have been all over for Atlas. She may be dragon champion, but there was always going to be a first loss for her in the future. With all these thoughts in mind, the magi vowed to be more careful next time.

Axle smashed the shield into the chains and slowly started to snap them apart. **"You have enough to get out in human form now if you wish,"** he said as he leaned against a bone wall, which fell with his weight as he lands on top of it. **"Ow!"**

The magi replied, **"Thanks Axle."** She turned into her human form and the chains dropped to the ground around her. She walked over the man and looked down at him, **"So how are you feeling Axle? Are my nieces still at the hot spring cave?"** She hissed through her teeth after feeling the throbbing pain from her back and head.

As Axle sat up and looked at Atlas, he said, **"Ya, they are still in the hot springs place. And how I feel on the other hand, exhausted from all the running I did to get here. My legs feel like jelly because of that."**

The woman felt a bit bad about the state of the dragon lord's legs and said, **"Eh, sorry I had you running like that."**

The man came to his feet and said, **"What about you? Seeing how you fought Spinx and two lords and came out a bit fine there, minus the fact you were chain to the ground." **

As Atlas got the awkward feel of trying to make her hand reach either the throbbing back or head, she replied, **"Bad... Spinx got me good with that bones spell he sent at me. Now my head and my back are hurting like crazy."**

Axle gave her an expression of pity before saying, **"Come on, let's get back to the cave before something else bad happens."**

Atlas gave a short nod and said, **"Right!"** She teleported both herself and him back to the spring cave.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I couldn't figure out how to reword this sentence from draco's post: _The two Dragon lords, both a Black red scaled dragons. as a acid red blood color drool on the ground._ Anyway, I'm thinking about doing some revisions to the past chapters to keep in near canon with the Dragon Cave encyclopedia before I do my next chapter.

UPDATE: I fixed the spelling and grammar errors in this chapter.

Spinx, Juna, Mekarth, Dracul, Sirath, Eve, and Tork (c) Lorddraco8967


	24. The Newcomers

**Chapter 23: The Newcomers**

Danielle was done eating the catfish by the time the adults returned, but Kylie didn't eat any of it. She had tried a taste of it, but spat it out as it wasn't part of the balloon dragon diet. **"Aunt Atwas, I'm hungwy,"** she said to the woman.

Atlas walked slowly and awkwardly over to the hot spring as she told her niece, **"Don't worry, I'll get you some food as soon as I stop hurting."** She carefully set herself into the hot spring with one leg going in and then the other leg going after. Then she let herself slowly sink into the warm water. The spring was quite soothing to the pain.

Axle walked over to a wall near the entrance and slide down it. He placed the shield to the right of him as he leaned the sword over his left shoulder. He leaned his head against the wall behind him as he stared up to the ceiling. **"Atlas, we have a guest coming from what I can hear. I can't tell if it's a large dragon. But whatever it is, the hum of the wings are getting heavier as if it's getting exhausted from flying,"** Axle said with a heavy breath of air. Atlas rose a bit out of the water and turned her head around to look at the entrance of the cave. She got out of the hot spring and walked over to the cliff of the cave. She looked outside to see who or what was there. If it was Spinx and one of his undead dragons, then this she was going to escape by teleporting everyone including herself to somewhere else. That way, Atlas would still be alive to take care of her family and have more time to recover. A large black dragon was seen flying outside; fortunately, he didn't have the stench of death on him. **"So he head north,"** Axle said out loud as they watched as the dragon circled a second time.

**"Who?"** the woman asked without taking her eyes off the black dragon that was heading toward the cave.

**"It's Mekarth, Atlas,"** Axle answered. **"Would explain why he vanished from Shadow Wind, but why is he so far north?"** he asked as they watched Mekarth fly around one more time before landing near Atlas, with a powerful gust of wind following just shortly behind him. It made the woman's hair blow back and she kept her eyes closed to keep the dry air from getting into them.

The hatchlings were also affected by the gust as they were almost swept off their feet. Kylie went, **"Eek!"**

Danielle held on to the ground as best as she can and cried, **"Whoa!"**

Mekarth look at the two hatchlings and then Atlas before he turned his attention to the bleeding man that was his brother. Almost in an instance, he growled at the woman with a low tone as if he was accusing her of being responsible for Axle's wounds. The man growled at his brother, **"Mekarth, she is a friend and a good person, so back down."**

The black dragon still growled a little bit longer before heading over to his brother and pressing his head against Axle's chest in a gentle way. **"Are you going to tell me how you got injured?"** Mekarth said as he pulled his head back and looked at the man.

Axle simply shrugged and answered, **"Arrow to the chest. Now are you going to tell me why you are so far north?"**

Mekarth simply shook his head. **"I came to find you to help me save sister, I'm sure you already know who have her,"** the dragon said as he curled up around his brother, though he did have to move Axle a bit to do it.

**"Ya, I know; and she knows as well,"** the man said as he pointed to Atlas. **"But first I must finish what father has sent me to do; it was the last thing he wished."**

The woman walked up towards them a bit as she said, **"We're still on our way to Trident Mountain. We had to rest and heal first because Spinx attacked us."** Then she changed back into a dragoness and continued, **"I'm Atlas, I've just started escorting Axle and protecting him ever since his bodyguard, Strider, died."**

The hatchlings went over to Mekarth and looked up at him as the whiptail piped with an open smile, **"And I'm Danielle!"**

**"I'm Kywie,"** said the balloon hatchling, who was smiling, too.

Mekarth looked at Atlas and said, **"So you can shape shift as well. I take it Axle told you how to."** He looked at his brother, who has already fallen asleep. Mekarth shook his large head before saying to the family, **"It's nice to meet you all. But as you can see, Axle already passed out and I think I'll go to sleep as well."**

The magi caught the metallic scent of blood nearby. The smell was coming from Axle and this had her concerned. **"I don't think he's just passed out. Something's wrong, can't you smell it?"** she asked, sounding worried. She went over to the man and lowered her face to get close his body. After breathing in the scent, the dragoness thought, _'Yep, that's blood alright; his blood. Why the heck didn't Axle heal his own wound? He's a white dragon for Pete's sake.'_ After withdrawing her head away from him, she prodded the man with her paw and told, **"Axle. Axle, wake up! You're bleeding."**

The man opened his blue eyes up and replied, **"Ya I know I'm bleeding, I can't stop it until the poison wear off. The certain poison makes your mind fuzzy, making it near impossible to use magic of any kind unless you're focusing on the certain spell really hard. Right now, I'm keeping myself in human form to keep the blood lost as little as possible. I am healing, but at a very slow rate. If I was in dragon form, I would lose more blood faster, and have a larger wound to cover."** He was still breathing a bit faster than normal. Atlas's eyes widened in a bit of a shock. Spinx's arrow was covered in poison that weakens the ability to do magic? Now that made the necromancer sound even more dangerous. The magi could imagine what the fight would have been like if Spinx had fired an arrow at her. No doubt she would probably lose as she would have no magic to defend herself against him and the dragon lords.

Mekarth suggested, **"Ever thought about sealing the wound without using magic, like burning it close?" **Axle shook his head in response.

Atlas asked the dragon, **"I got fire magic. But does it work? I mean the burning wound thing."** She wanted to make sure, before she tried touching his brother with her fire aura-covered finger.

As Axle looked at the magi, Mekarth answered, **"It will hurt like hell when it happens, but it will cauterize the wound closed and stop it from bleeding. It was used before antibiotics were invented by humans."** Then he turned his head to his brother and continued, **"But it's up to him if he willing to let it be sealed by fire." **Atlas was surprised to hear that humans used fire to heal wounds. She found the knowledge kind of strange as she had known fire to only be a destructive element, not a healing one.

**"Do it, but I'm not going to wake up a bit if you do it,"** said Axle as he removed the patch that was now thick in blood. The wound was evident that it was healing at a very slow speed. The man's wound was 3/4 the size of its original size, and Axle gritted his teeth in pain from the removal of the patch. **"Just do it,"** he said, bracing himself.

**"Fine then,"** said Atlas. She set the finger of her front foot ablaze and moved it to Axle's wound. The man groaned in pain as the wound was cauterized. After touching the wound, Atlas withdrew her finger and asked, **"You feeling alright?"** She wanted to make sure that Axle wasn't hurting too bad.

**"Ya, just peachy,"** Axle said painfully. **"Thanks though."** The man slid what was left of his shirt on and fell asleep.

Mekarth turned to Atlas and said, **"Well that went better than I thought. I thought he would snap on one of us. And thank you; the more Axle don't have to worry about, the more I don't have to worry about." **Then he looked at her curiously and asked, **"Um mind me asking; but Atlas, is it? Would you happen to be Atlas Firestar?"**

**"Yes I am,"** Atlas answered. She was a bit amazed to see that Mekarth had caught on quick to her identity. She guessed it was probably because Axle told him beforehand with telepathy. Either that, or Atlas was a name that was almost unheard of Shadow Wind that if one were to hear that name, it would mostly likely be referred to as her.

Mekarth look at Atlas and said in a lower tone, **"So, Axle has a former gladiator as his companion; how... interesting."** Then he asked,** "Mind me asking, but how did you come across Axle?"**

Atlas told him the story of how it all happened, **"Well my nieces and I were staying over at a castle that I unearthed after sensing its magical energy. We stayed over there for a week before I met Axle and Strider while hunting. They were being pursued by Marc, so I gave them shelter at the castle while I went to destroyed city to raid the supermarket for some human food to feed them."** Then she frowned and continued, **"But while I was there, Marc and his men somehow managed to get into the castle and they tried to kill everyone, including my nieces. I got back to save Axle and the hatchlings in time, but Strider wasn't fortunate though. He and Marc died when I got there. I took Strider's body with the others and buried him next to a building at the same city that I went to. Axle was sad to lose his friend like that; I can totally imagine what it's like for him. Soon, he told me that he was going to put some kind of object over at Trident Mountain. I volunteer to go with him and protect him in Strider's stead since I felt like he needed some protection from that Spinx creep. So that's where we are now. The two of, um I mean all four of us on the run trying to get to the mountain."** She quickly remembered her nieces were on this journey since she herself decided to go with Axle.

Mekarth looked at her strangely and asked, **"That a bit out of your way is it not? I mean you have your nieces to protect, and you took Cloud spot of Axle's guard. It seems a bit of a burden on your shoulder, even for a dragon. It is your choices, and I can't stop you from making it." **

The magi said, **"Well even if I knew what Spinx's powers are, I probably wouldn't have picked a different choice. I mean I'm not the kind of dragoness who would let others go unhelped."**

They heard giggling noises and looked down at the hatchlings. The sisters were now chasing each other around the spring. Danielle, being the faster of the two, always caught Kylie. When the roles are switched, the balloon had trouble catching up to her sister. Mekarth looked back to the magi as he said, **"I think I'll go take a nap for a bit as I think over what you said Atlas Firestar."** The dragon laid his head down on the tip of his tail as he fold the wing over Axle and him. **"Would not want to be weak if Spinx attacks."**

**"Right then,"** said Atlas. She went back to the hot spring and took a nap there with her head resting over the edge.

* * *

After their lunch was done, the Vulture horde left the camp ruins in search of the next camp to destroy. It took them three hours to find the next one, but this time it had been destroyed before the horde got there. By the looks of it, the place had been damaged heavily by fire with objects and people toasted black or melted. Aeolus knew that this was the work of another dragon or a group of them, which means they would have more recruits to his horde. He told his horde to spread through the campsite and roar out calls to attract the dragons responsible for this.

It took ten minutes until a crimson pygmy returned and flew over to the horde leader, to whom he reported, **"Aeolus, I got telepathic message from the dragons who destroyed the camp. They're on their way over to meet us."**

The disaster replied to him, **"That's good. It makes things easier for us."** That way they wouldn't have to go looking for the place to meet them. The leader telepathically spoke to his horde and said, _'Everyone, that's enough roaring. The dragons responsible for this are coming over here to meet us. Let me know when they get here.'_ The horde stopped roaring and everything went silent as the dragons focused on looking out for the newcomers.

Twenty minutes later, Aeolus got a telepathic alert from one of the dragons, _'Aeolus, they're here! Three of them; two magis and a storm dragon.'_

Magis and a storm dragon; these were two of the best breeds the horde needs. If these dragons were to join his horde, then Aeolus would have two diurnal magic users for daytime raids, which would allow Eitri much needed rest to use his energy for nighttime. The extra storm dragon would allow for more lightning bolts to blast the buildings and electrocute the humans. _'Send them over to me,'_ the disaster dragon said. The dragons split up to make a path for the magis and storm dragons to get through to the horde leader. Aeolus gave them his courteous greeting, **"Greetings, fellow dragons."**

**"Greetings to you too, Aeolus,"** said the male magi dragon with black rocky patches on his body. He was obviously half-magma dragon by appearance, and Aeolus guessed that he was how the camp got to be burnt. The magi/magma dragon began introducing his group, **"I am Kekul and my mate's name is Enamora."** He turned his head briefly over to the pure-bred magi dragoness, who bowed her head politely to the horde leader. Kekul looked to the storm dragon next and said, **"And my long-time friend here is Cirrus."** Cirrus just simply smiled in response. Kekul looked back to Aeolus and continued speaking, **"So it is to my understanding that your horde is in need of recruits to destroy all the humans in Solomos?"**

The disaster dragon answered, **"Yes, as a matter of fact. But that's not the horde's only purpose."**

**"It's not? Then what else do you do?" **asked the magma magi, needing to know more before he dared to get himself involved at risk.

Aeolus explained, **"We are also building up a large army to outmatch the human army's exceeding numbers. They are a threat in that they're hunting down dragons everywhere and killing them on sight. One village I know has gone into hiding to protect themselves from the humans, and there may be many others doing the same thing. As long as the army's around, no one is safe."**

Cirrus asked, **"And you want our help to wipe them off the face of the earth, right?"**

**"Yes," **Aeolus answered. **"But there are a few things you should know about the army first. First of all they have five halfling magic users among them. Our only night magi, Eitri, couldn't handle them alone and our horde back then was too small to fight the human soldiers. So since then, we've been looking for dragons willing to add to our morale. Dragons with magical abilities such as yourself are a great deal to the horde as we need them the most to combat the halfings and destroy the humans faster."** He said, **"With your help, the threat to dragonkind will be destroyed and you will all be heroes. We'll make Solomos a safer place for us all. So what will your answer be? I'm willing to hear from you." **

Kekul seemed interested and said, **"That sounds like something we can handle. But what's the catch? What do we get in return after this?"**

**"What kind of reward are you looking for?"** inquired Aeolus.

**"Let's see..."** the magi magma said as his green sparkling eyes looked away and he thought about what he wanted in return. He engaged in a telepathic communication with his two buddies and discussed their desires. After they all came to a decision, they looked back at the disaster dragon and the mixed dragon asked, **"Say, do you live in some kind of society? If so, what's it like?"**

From the sound of it, the three dragons sounded like they wanted to join and live in a dragon group like a clan, village, or kingdom. Aeolus knew of two places as he explained, **"Well I used to be a part of the Gallion clan, a noble clan by the way, until the humans killed some of us and separated the rest of us as slaves."** The memory of the raid and massacre flashed through the horde leader's mind as he remembered the deaths of his father and his sister, Selena. He put that terrible memory to the side as he continued, **"The clan was a large one and it was wealthy in that we lived in a luscious, beautiful forest and we had a stash of gold and gems. We even ruled over the land and the smaller clans that lived in our woods."** The gold wasn't considered currency as they had no need to sell and buy, unlike the human cultures. But the gold and gems were considered good luck charms among dragons. The more you had, the luckier you were, or at least supposed to be.

Before the leader could talk about Doubloon's village, the three dragons smiled in content as Enamora got amazed and asked, **"Ooh, you're a noble dragon?"**

**"I am," **Aeolus answered.

Kekul was enthusiastic and said, **"Now that sounds like a clan I want to join."**

**"I see you're eager to want to join my clan. But first you'll have to show me your character and prowess in every destruction we take part in, then I will decide if I want you in my clan or now," **said Aeolus. He wasn't going to let strangers in that easily.

The magma magi said, **"That we will."** He looked at his buddies and asked, **"Right guys?"**

**"Oh yeah sure," **said Enamora

Cirrus exclaimed, **"Of course!"**

**"Very well then, you three are in," **said Aeolus. **"Welcome to the Vulture horde."** The horde left the camp with the new recruits to search for the next camp. On the way, Aeolus thought about rebuilding his clan. The talk with recruits had made him think about the future after humanity's extinction. Gallion clan needed to be large again and he was going to invite some of the horde members into his clan. Plus he also needed to retrieve the gold, gems, and crystals stolen by the humans to show proof of his nobility status. In case he can't find them, then raiding museums and jewelry stores not occupied by other dragons would provide treasure to give him his merit. The disaster dragon's thoughts turned to Zeditha and wondered if these new magis would have the ability to teleport over to her. **"By the way, I have one question for you,"** he said.

The new trio was listening as Kekul asked, **"Yes? What is it?"**

The disaster dragon asked, **"Do any of you know how to teleport?"**

The magma magi nodded his head and answered, **"Why yes, we do. Well Cirrus can't do it, but my mate and I can."**

**"That is good," **said Aeolus, who was glad to hear it. **"Because I have a first task I need you to do."**

Kekul asked, **"And that would be?"**

Aeolus gave the trio a mental image of Zeditha and the baby in telepathy and answered, _'I need you kill a human infant that the traitor, Zeditha, has rescued from us. Fight her, if you need, to accomplish your task.'_

Enamora, having observed the dragonet's lithe body, commented, _'She looks like she might be fast.'_

The disaster dragon replied, _'She is, which is why I'll have you team up with the crimson flares to get her.'_ He broke off telepathy for a bit to call the crimson flares over, **"Ursula, Firefry, Lokola, Serhon, Biskel, to me!"** The crimson flares walked over to their leader as they went around their comrades and passed under their legs. Once they all reached them, Aeolus briefed them on the mission, **"Crimson flares, I am going to send you with our new recruits to fight our traitor for the human infant. We need that child dead. Since Zeditha has been shown to fly fast, I feel your speed will help to easily catch up to her. Plus, your numbers will help to overwhelm her. She shall be no match for all of you."**

Firefry voiced his opinion regretfully, **"That's great and all, but I'm kinda going to feel sorry we had to do this to her. I mean, she did free us from the humans."**

The disaster dragon reasoned, **"That is true, but what's more important is that the baby dies. As long as one human is left unchecked; it will go to others who are still alive and reproduce their race back, which means they will use their population to bring us back to the dark ages. We can't let that happen!"**

The other crimson flare agreed and said, **"Aeolus is right; all humans are dangerous to our kind. We have to kill them all; even if it means going against Zeditha."**

Aeolus felt thanks for the other flare for his support and told Firefry, **"See? Even your friend here knows that. So I suggest you put your feelings aside and do what's most important. The future depends on it."**

Firefry hasn't let go of his emotion, but he was willing to submit to doing his mission. **"Alright, whatever it takes. I will see the human dead,"** he said.

**"Much appreciated,"** the disaster said. Then he looked to the new magis and commanded them, **"Kekul, Enamora, warp your team over to Zeditha now."**

**"Got it!" **the magi mates said at the same time. Then they used their teleport spell on themselves and their teammates and warped out of here, leaving behind clouds of purple smoke.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I updated chapters 3, 7, 12, 15, 16, 17, and 18 to make Kylie an omnivore learning herbivore (the only meat she eats are insects), Bam into a navy blue dragon (a breed I made up since royal blues are nocturnal and don't breathe fire), and put the existence of dragons dangerous to each other (most of them still get along I believe).

Also here's this funny typo I found while making this chapter: _Merkath still growled a little bit longer before heading over to his brother, and press his head against Axle chest in a genital way._

Anyway, since I didn't upload this chapter last week, I'm going to see if I can do chapter 24 quickly before the end of this Saturday. Then after that, I'm going to color my Wonderful 101 fanart and then try to draw Atlas in armor and in her human form. I can't fall behind Feathery-wings in having the most number of Wonderful 101 deviations in the fanclub.

And finally, don't expect to see the Zeditha vs the horde fight in the main story; that's going to left up to Zeditha's story, which is coming on February 12, 2015, if I have enough room to incorporate it in there.

UPDATE: I fixed the spelling errors in this chapter.

Kekul, Enamora, Cirrus, Firefry, Ursula, Lokola, Serhorn, and Biskel (c) me


	25. Axle the Villain!

**Chapter 24: Axle the villain?!**

The Vulture Horde waited for the baby-killer team to return with expectations of success. Aeolus pictured Zeditha being overpowered by the magis' magic, while the baby gets ripped and torn apart by the other dragons. Things were going to be good; the plan was flawless and this mission will be easy with the dragons he have chosen. A bright flash appeared in the center of the horde and in its place appeared the team; they had returned from the mission and they looked like they had been in a fight, but not with Zeditha apparently. They had claw marks and bite marks bigger than a dragonet would have made, and burns on their bodies. The horde looked at them bewildered and started asking, **"What happened to you?"** and **"Did Zeditha do this to you guys?"**

Aeolus looked to the dragon who asked the latter of the two questions and responded, **"No, it wasn't! Don't you see how big some of the wounds are? Zeditha couldn't have done this alone."** Then he turned to the team and asked them, **"Kekul, everyone. What happened back there?"**

The magma magi winced in pain before he answered, **"We were in some building that Zeditha was at and she was with others; a weird halfling and a dragon. We fought them to get to the infant, but then these dragons calling themselves the Aquarians came and attacked us."**

Tavurth became disgruntled and growled sarcastically, **"Oh great, more race traitors. Just what this world needs." **

Hewey went to help Cirrus heal the group as Kekul continued to tell his story, **"We were outmatched, because they had more numbers, a few magis, and wore armor. Our team couldn't stand a chance against them."**

Aeolus realized that was the magma magi said had sounded very familiar to a certain place that Atlas had told him about this morning. But just to make sure, he asked, **"Tell me, did they ever mention the name of the city you were in?"**

Before Kekul could say anything, Enamora answered for him, **"It was Windfall."**

The horde leader frowned and thought, _'I knew it.'_

The team looked at her in confusion as one of the crimson flares asked, **"Wait a minute! How would you know? They never said its name."**

The magi dragoness told him, **"Because just now, they sent me a warning through telepathy that if the Vulture Horde was ever seen in Windfall again; they would show no mercy. They along with all the other dragons in Windfall will fight us to protect the humans."**

Bam was shocked at what he just heard and asked, **"They'd fight us for the humans?! Why would they do that?"**

Aeolus answered with a growl, **"Because these fools trust humans so much that they think rebuilding the city that they just destroyed will help them get on the humans' good side. They obviously don't understand their enemies."**

Tavurth growled without sympathy, **"If these brainless idiots get themselves killed, then good! I won't feel sorry for anybody who puts humans above our kind."**

The horde leader frowned and disagreed with him, **"While the dragons there may not be so bright; we still can't let them succumb to their misguided downfall. Because the less dragons we have, the less warriors we have to combat the humans."**

Fakoo asked, **"So how do we get the dragons of Windfall to see their mistake, if we can't go to Windfall?" **Despite Windfall's opposition, she was worried about the innocent lives of dragons there.

Aeolus explained, **"Well Fakoo, since the whole of that city will be against us; we'll have to settle for building up an extremely large horde, not counting pygmies. In the meantime, we can only hope that Windfall will realize their mistake by themselves and survive before it's too late. Vulture Horde, let's move out."** The horde took to the sky and flew over the rainforest.

* * *

The Vulture Horde landed by a huge lake to drink some water. The coolness of the water would help their bodies cool off from the summer heat that was burning their bodies. The dragons brought their heads down to the lake and drank up the water. Bam and a few other fun-loving dragons jumped into the lake to swim and cool off. Big splashes as well as small ones from pygmies were made as the water drops flew over the air and fell down on the other horde members. Some of them, even Aeolus, were annoyed from getting wet. Bam and the others didn't seem to care as they swam around in the lake. **"Whoo-hoo! Oh yeah, now that's a great way to cool off!"** the navy blue dragon said.

Corona the phoenix dragon growled, **"Well that's good for you, Bam! But did you have to get my feathers wet? You know I don't like having water on me."**

Bam made a nervous smile and apologized, **"Sorry, Corona."**

Aeolus told his cousin, **"Just be careful next time, Bam. Because she's not the only way upset with getting splashed."** He looked to the other annoyed dragons.

**"Alright, gotcha!"** the navy blue said. The dragons went back to drinking and swimming.

Soon, they heard a distant sound of a car driving on the road. The drinking dragons lifted up their heads and looked over to the direction of the roaring sound of wheels. _'Humans,'_ Aeolus thought. Here comes another one to bite the dust. The horde leader headed off towards the road and remained behind the trees on the ascending slope. A lone black car with some luggage tied at the top was approaching his view. Aeolus waited for the vehicle to get closer within range, but not passing him by. When the right time came, the disaster dragon blew out lightning at the car's front compartment. The male mustached driver got taken by great surprise and let out a short scream before the engine blew up and took away his life. The car and the luggage became set on fire from the explosion and glass windows were broken in the destruction. Aeolus turned from the scene and went back over to the lake.

Bam swam underwater like a seal and kept his wings tucked to his body so that they don't slow him down in the water. He approached a small school of fish that fled away upon seeing him. They split up into two groups with one going to the right and the other going left. Bam, having never eaten fish before, decided to try one. He went after the left group and pursued them until they got to the opposite side of the bank. There he managed to clamp his jaws down onto three fish, while the others escaped. The navy blue swam up to the surface to breathe and eat the fish. When he got onto the bank, he saw a cassare dragonet with a deer he had apparently hunted. Bam spat the fish out onto the grass, where they flopped in panic at being unable to breathe out of their home. **"Oh hey there!"** he greeted the cassare with a friendly smile.

The cassare grinned back and introduced himself, **"Hey. I'm Pyro.****" **His gaze drifted to the dragons on the opposite bank. **"****So who are you? I've never seen you around here before, and who are they?****" **he asked, motioning to the large group of dragons.

**"I'm Bam and these guys over there are the Vulture horde,"** the navy blue said before he turned their heads to look at his fellow horde members. He looked back at Pyro and said, **"We're a horde that exterminates humans and we're building up our numbers so that we can go destroy the army that's been going around killing dragons. Care to join?"**

The cassare's eyes lit up with excitement and he answered with a smile, **"Sure, I'll join."**

Bam's black eyes lit up with excitement and said, **"Great! I'll tell my cousin, Aeolus, we have a new member of the horde."** Then he contacted the disaster dragon through telepathy and said, _'Aeolus, guess what?! We have a new member of the horde!'_

The reply he heard was, _'Bring him over to me.'_

_'Okay,'_ Bam replied.

Before the navy blue could beckon for Pryo to follow him, three pygmies popped their heads out of the water. One of them, a flower pygmy asked, **"Bam, who's that?"**

The navy blue looked at her and replied, **"Oh that's Pyro. I was just talking with him."** Then he looked at the cassare and said, **"Come on, let's go meet my cous, he's the leader of the horde."** The two dragons spread their wings and flew across the lake to the other side. Bam found Aeolus sitting between trees and said to him, **"Here he is, cous!"** The disaster dragon looked up and watched the two land to the ground before him. Bam looked at Pyro and introduced him to the horde leader, **"Pyro, this is Aeolus, our leader."** Then he looked to the disaster dragon and said, **"Aeolus, this is Pyro. I met him across the lake."**

The cassare dipped his head in greeting and stammered, **"Greetings. I, guess I would like to join your horde."**

Aeolus smiled at him and said, **"You're very much welcome into the horde, Pyro. Now could you care to tell me what your abilities are? There's no qualifications for joining the horde, but it is helpful to me to know what you're like so that I can put you in the correct position for tonight's ambush on the human's army."** The leader was very much interested and eager to have the cassare in the horde as Pyro would be a very valuable asset. With him, he can disable the halfling mages' magic when he's up close to them and killing off the foot soldiers will be much easier without the help of the halflings. Not only that, but he would also be very useful in the rescuing of Windfall. But of course, one cassare alone won't do it; the horde needed more of his kind.

Pyro nodded and answered, **"****Well, like all Cassare Dragons I can weaken the magic around me. Personally, I don't find much use for it except for scaring away mages.****"** He smirked and continued, **"They're nothing without their precious magic. I can also fight, but that's about it."**

**"That's a very useful ability we should have,"** the disaster dragon complimented. **"You see, we're going to destroy an army of the humans' warriors and there are some magic-users among them. A different horde, that a few of my members once belonged to, had been killed by their powerful magic; and I don't want my horde to suffer the same fate as them. So with you on our side, our chances of victory will increase. Of course some strategic plans will have to be made first, so that your magic-nullifying powers don't accidentally stop our magi dragons from being able to cast spells."** He quickly got to work on coming up with tonight's strategy and said, **"Like what we could do is have Zylanon the shadow dragon go in first and kill the watch guards. Then the black ghost dragons would go in and search for the halflings while silently killing the other soldiers along the way. Once they're found, you will go to where the black ghosts are and then exterminate the halfling mages inside. The rest of the horde will be split into two groups: those teleported above the camp to rain down aerial attacks, and the other group surrounding the camp on all sides to kill off any fleeing soldiers or destroying the tents and humans to push forward and trap the fiends at the center where they'll easily be destroyed in one shot. That's how our plan works."**

Pyro nodded to the plan and asked, **"Where do I go after I've killed the halflings? I should probably get out of the way, because even from a distance, my powers can affect other dragons' magic.****"**

Aeolus felt the cassare made a good point. With a solution to his concern in mind, he answered, **"Then you and the black ghosts should quietly leave the camp and tell us through telepathy when you're out. That way our magic won't be nullified when we go in to attack."**

**"Okay, got it," **the cassare replied.

**"I'm glad you do,"** the disaster dragon replied. He turned his head to look at the sun that was about to set down to the horizon and said, **"We should get some sleep soon. We'll need our energy for tonight's attack."**

Bam and Pyro both agreed as they nodded. **"Agreed,"** the cassare said. Aeolus went to tell his horde to eat some dinner before they all go to sleep.

* * *

Once Atlas was healed by the the hot spring, she turned back into a dragoness and went out to search for fruits to feed Kylie. She came back with an apple and some blackcherries, which she gave to the balloon hatchling. The magi had also teleported a hunted bear for Mekarth in case he was hungry and some fruits and nuts for Axle to eat later after he wakes up. Atlas then found out that the assumed diet for Axle was wrong after Mekarth told her that he was a carnivore, which surprised the magi. So she had to go back out to hunt and return with an elk this time. When Axle had woke up, he ate the elk in his dragon form. Now later, it was night time and Axle still hasn't woken up to eat. Atlas froze the elk in hard ice to preserve it through the night. Then she looked over at her nieces and told them,**"Danielle, Kylie, bedtime."**

**"Okay, Aunt Atwas!"** the sisters said as they ran over to their aunt. Atlas curled her tail around the hatchlings and they all went to sleep.

* * *

After everything was packed up, the refugees, that Kathia and Jason worked with, drove far away from Windfall and settled near to Trident Mountain. Kathia had called Mrs. Merryweather on her cellphone and told her that she'll be staying with the camp for tonight. The maid told her to stay safe out there and the girl assured her that she can look after herself. By then, it was now night time. The people got out the tents and set them up for people to sleep in tonight before it got too late when everybody would feel too tired to stay up. There would be no time to start building up a town, but tomorrow there will be.

* * *

A few hours later until midnight, the horde woke up from their nap that they took to get their energy ready for the raid on the human camp. Eitri and Zylanon arrived via teleportation from Chief Doubloon's village. Aeolus looked telepathically contacted his whole horde and asked, _'Is everybody up and ready?'_

_'Yeah!'_ replied everyone.

_'Good, we shall get strike immediately!'_ the horde leader said.

A dark leaf pygmy saw through the darkness and caught sight of an approaching red dragon and a gold dragon alongside him. _'Aeolus, wait! We got company here,'_ he said.

The disaster dragon raised his tail and brought it back to the ground to gesture the magi dragons to not teleport them yet. _'Who is it?'_ he asked.

_'Two dragons, sir,'_ the dark pygmy reported.

Aeolus told his cousin, **"Bam, give me some light from your fire."**

**"Sure thing, cous!"** the royal blue replied. He opened his mouth and blew a little bit of fire to hold in and use as a torch.

The two cousins walked together to search for the strangers. _'Where are you?'_ Aeolus asked the pygmy.

The dark pygmy spoke out loud so his leader could find him more easily, **"Over here! Can you hear me?"**

**"Loud and clear,"** the disaster dragon replied, going over to the direction of the pygmy's voice. There they saw the red and gold dragons. The red dragon had yellow wing membranes and underside, unlike the typical red dragons with their black ones. His horns were also red like his scales and there were fin-like spines, one running from the back of his head to his neck and the other from his back to the end of his tail. The gold dragon had a noticeable scar on his eye. **"Can I help you?"** Aeolus asked the two.

The red dragon answered, **"Yes, you can. We are looking for a dragon that may know another dragon by the name of Atlas Firestar."** Then he looked at the gold dragon walking back a bit and nodded to him. He continued speaking to Aeolus, **"Certainly, she is helping a traitor dragon by the name of Axle Incarus. I would hate it if anything would happen to her or the hatchlings she have with her. That is the reason and the only reason why we are here, so it a bit urgent."**

Aeolus's interest got piqued at the mention of his old friend's name. But more curiously, he was wondering who exactly this traitor dragon known as Axle was like and why the magi dragoness was helping him. Bam's mind shared his curiosity as his cousin. He looked to the disaster dragon and spoke him to telepathically, _'Hey didn't you say you knew someone named Atlas a long time ago?'_

_'I do, and it sounds just like her. I heard her sister, Flarina, and her mate got killed by hybrids. That's why Atlas is raising her nieces by herself, which is why she couldn't join the horde,'_ the disaster answered.

Bam felt sorry for the magi and the hatchlings. _'Oh that poor dragoness,' _he said.

Going back to the topic at hand, Aeolus said to the red dragon, **"I'm a friend of Atlas. Now can you tell me more about what's going on?"**

The red dragon said calmly, **"Well let me introduce myself. My name is Dracul Caruisn and I'm the current lord for a city named Shadow Wind. With me is Arch Dravinca, a current lord as well. Like I said, Atlas has started to help a traitor from Shadow Wind. He is currently wanted for killing another dragon by the name of Crimsrion Drago, a gold dragon that was after him in the first place, to bring him back to Shadow Wind for another crime of buying slaves, humans, dragons and halflings."** The horde members, who heard all that, were shocked at atrocious acts of the Shadow Wind traitor. Normally it would be humans doing those things, but for another dragon to do that was totally a shock. Aeolus growled with disgust and loathing for Axle. He had never heard of a dragon this despicable ever since the ancient story of the first wicked dragon, Evila, whose name gave rise to the word 'evil'. To the horde leader, Axle was nothing more than a race traitor, who would do harm to his fellow dragons. He didn't understand why Atlas, a dragoness who hated crimes against her racem would help someone like him. Unless maybe he had tricked her. Dracul looked to the ground, almost looking like he would regret it, and said, **"All I simple care for is Atlas's safety and the hatchlings' safety. We currently have a special... human, after Axle, by the name of Spinx. According to one of his report, she went and fought him, and teleported Axle to a unknown location. If she would to continue her assistance with Axle, she would be consider a threat to Shadow Wind and it would leave me no choice but to kill her for the protection of Shadow Wind. It's my job to protect all that live in Shadow Wind and I will have see to it."**

Aeolus didn't like the idea of a human working for them, considering their treacherous nature, but he kept quiet about it. If Atlas continued protecting him, then she would be killed. This was very serious indeed and Aeolus couldn't let that happen to her. He replied to the lord, **"Thank you for telling me this, Dracul. I will see to Atlas and make sure she realizes the truth, so that she won't bother protecting Axle anymore."** Then he turned to the horde and told them, **"Vulture Horde, the attack on the army camp will have to be put on hold. Right now, we must deal with this Axle dragon and bring him to justice."** Then he telepathically told the magma magi, _'Kekul, I need you to place the tracking spell on Atlas, so that you can warp my chosen group over to her. This is what she looks like.'_ Using his memory, he sent him an image of the red-tinted magi dragoness and her sparkling purple eyes.

Kekul received the image and said, _'I got it, sir!'_ He teleported the tracking spell over to Atlas and told the leader, _'It is done. So which ones do you want me to teleport over to her?'_ He figured that was what the leader wanted.

Aeolus answered, _'I want you and your mate to warp me, Dracul, Arch, Pyro, Tavurth, Uvanis, Eitri, Lutarn, Zylanon, Hewey, the flower pygmies, and the crimson flares over to where she's at.'_

_'Yes, sir!'_ the magma magi obliged. Then Kekul gave his mate Atlas's location and the two teleported the chosen dragons over to the spring cave mountain.

Bam relaxed his hold on the fire inside his mouth until the flame died down. He heard his cousin's voice telling him, _'Bam, you are in charge of this horde until I get back.'_

The navy blue smiled with pride at having being trusted to be temporary leader. _'Don't worry, cous. Everything will be alright.'_

* * *

The Firestars were sleeping when suddenly lights were flashing inside the cave. Atlas squeezed his eyes tight in response to the disturbance, before she opened them up and groaned, **"Ugh, what the hell?"** Draconic smells caught her attention and she realized that there were other dragons in the cave. **"Huh? Who's there?"** she asked, lifting her head. A flame appeared and gave light to reveal a brute dragon's face. The magi was about to respond, when a fireball flew by fast and zoomed around like a winged insect. Another one appeared flying around as well and then came four more other like them. The lights from these balls showed a shadow dragon, a cassare, and a healer dragon inside the cave. One of the fireballs passed by another one and revealed that the carriers of these balls were crimson flares.

The hatchlings woke up to see all these strange dragons and fireballs in the air. The sisters were mostly mesmerized by the fireballs with tails as Danielle smiled and said, **"Ooh, so pretty!"**

Lutarn and Uvanis the dark leaf pygmy, who were outside the cave, went down to the white dragon, they thought was Axle, and grabbed him, holding him down. The white dragon snapped awake the wind was knock out of him as Eitri summoned the chains from the ground and wrapped around them around his neck and legs, but that was it before the chains lost their grip on the white dragon as he changed into a human. Eitri, Lutarn and Uvanis were taken by surprise at the sudden transformation as the man slid from under them towards the edge of the ledge, causing his arm to get scraped and bleed.

The trio heard Aeolus telling them, **"Get him, he must not be allowed to escape!"** So the two dragons pursued him with the flower pygmies flying with them, while Eitri sensed magic inside the spring cave and went in to stop Atlas.

Back in the cave, Zylanon went over to the black dragon, thinking he was Axle and bit him at the neck while trying to hold him down. This caused him to roar in pain, as it woke him up from his slumber. The Firestars quickly turned their heads to the direction of Mekarth's pained roar. They saw him slamming the shadow dragon into the wall next to him. Zylanon became dazed as he felt the black dragon slip loose from his fangs. Knowing that they were in danger, Atlas casted a fire aura around herself and got ready to engage in battle. She glared and growled at the enemy dragons as Mekarth stood between her and them. The sisters backed away to the corner and huddled themselves there. They were afraid of these big bad dragons. Standing near the front was a red dragon with a scar down his side. Mekarth glared at him and snarled the name out, **"Dracul."**

Atlas became alert and shouted, **"What? He's here?!"** She looked to where the black dragon was looking and saw the red dragon. The magi furrowed her eyes and growled, **"So that's Dracul, huh? He's got a lot of nerve showing his face around here!"** The dragoness channeled up a lot of her magic energy for to prepare a fire beam made just for him. But before she could cast it at all, Eitri came in and dispelled her aura with his wind magic and Tarvurth tackled her against the wall and held her neck with his jaws, pinning her to the way. The magi struggled to get free of his strong hold as she snarled, **"Get off of me!"**

The brute refused to let go as he told her telepathically, _'Trust me!'_

_'Like hell I will!'_ Atlas yelled back in Tavurth's mind. She thought of the hot spring in her mind and tried to warp there to escape. But for some reason, her teleportation spell wasn't working. _'What the hell? What's going on? Why can I warp?'_ she wondered. No matter how much she tried, the magi could not teleport. So Atlas went for the another solution and that was to burn his mouth with her fire aura. But when she tried that, nothing happened as well. **"Son of a bitch!"** she yelled. The sisters looked at Pyro, who was staring intently at their aunt.

Back outside, the man yelled to his attackers, **"Idiots, you're helping a once banished dragon and a dangerous dragon, Arch. Are you three insane?"** They didn't listen to him as they believed it was just a lie to save his own skin. The horde members stopped briefly to let Arch zap the man with a lightning spell. The man screamed in pain before he fell to his knees.

Arch looked down at him and said, **"Hmm, odd you did not pass out from that, Axle. That was enough lightning shock to knock out a dragon twice your size. Let's try this again, shall we?"** He used another lighting spell, but it never hit the man as two spheres circled him, one pink and one blue. They made almost a barrier around him before they went back into his pocket.

The man pushed himself off the ground as all his wound healed up. His blue eyes were close as he spoke, **"My name is Axle Incarus, son of dragon lord Excab Incarus and Lavnta Incarus, and grandchild to dragon lord Brancin Incarus. I will do my sworn duty and live the Incarus code. My mission: return to Shadow Wind and reclaim it back from Dracul Caruisn, and the force that follows the once banish dragon."** He was now in a full stand and his eyes snapped open revealing almost cat-like dragon eyes. **"And I will never forgive Dracul for what he did or anyone that follow him!"** Axle yelled at Arch, which seemed to catch the gold dragon off guard. Axle start to emulate a very deep low growl, as he re-entered his dragon form. Both him and Arch had a stare down, neither moving, and both snarling at each other.

Aeolus started to get skeptical and he looked over to the red dragon lord inside the cave and asked, _'Did I just hear that you were banished, Dracul?'_ He wasn't about to deem Dracul the real bad guy or a liar just yet. But hearing the word 'banished' made him think that the current dragon lord did something wrong that removed him from Shadow Wind. It could make him the real villain unless he had redeemed himself or he had been framed. The disaster dragon wanted to make sure that he was helping the right dragon out before he could make any more moves.

Dracul simply looked back and answered, **"Yes, I was banished for taking an action in my own hands; I killed a thief that stole an artifact. That ended up getting me banish from town for 100 years, that was 800 years ago. During that time Exbac; Axle, Mekarth, and Juna Incarus's father; took lordship. He would not let me back in my city and would always keep me out, well that was until recently."** Then he look back at Mekarth and said, **"But you, Mekarth, have nothing yet on your head. So just back down and let us get Axle, and you could live the rest of your life peacefully."**

The black dragon just shook his head defiantly in response. **"Hold your tongue, snake. You're going to need it when I squeeze the hidden secrets out of you,"** Mekarth snarled, as he got in to a readying stance, almost as if he was about to spring.

Dracul shook his head in disappointment. **"You know what will happen if you attack a lord, so why do it? It's your only and final warning, Mekarth,"** the dragon lord said as he readied himself.

Mekarth spoke though his snarling, **"The attack on a lord is a threat to the lord's life and a threat to Shadow Wind, but I willing to die to uncover the truth."** In a seconds, he pounced on the lord's back and both him and Dracul went out the mouth of the cave, roaring all the way down until they both hit the forest below.

Axle and Arch both attack each other at the same time, both drawling blood from each other. But the Arch infused his bite with lighting and caused Axle to lose his bite on his enemy. The gold dragon took the advantage and shoved the white dragon over the edge. Arch soon followed down after him. Atlas, having watched the fight outside the cave, got scared of what would happen to white and shouted, **"Axle!"**

Aeolus looked to Eitri, Lutarn, Uvanis, and the flower pygmies and said, **"Follow after them and make sure Dracul and Arch are okay. Stop and defeat Axle and Mekarth. I will go have word with Atlas."** The horde members nodded and descended down into the woods. The disaster dragon went inside the cave and approached Tavurth and Atlas who were shown in the light by the crimson flare's fireballs.

The magi looked surprised to see her old friend here among these dragon. **"Aeolus, you're working for that bastard, Dracul?!"** she asked in shock and betrayal.

The disaster dragon was unfazed by her emotions and replied calmly, **"I am, if it'll keep you from getting killed. Listen Atlas, I don't know how you got into working for Axle. But you're siding with the wrong dragons here. Axle is a wanted criminal who killed another dragon and bought dragon slaves."**

Atlas looked in angry disbelief at what she had just heard. **"What?! That's a damn lie if I ever heard one! The real bad guy here is Dracul! He's a tyrant who killed his own family just for the sake of getting leadership. And ever since then, Shadow Wind went to hell under his rule,"** she yelled.

Aeolus looked at the dragoness and begun processing information in his head. Dracul never told him that he was related to Axle. But was probably perhaps because there was no need to. But the murder of Dracul's family was bothering him. It was indeed a terrible act, but how could know for sure if the whole thing or part of it was really the truth or just a lie fed to her by Axle. Either Atlas was the one getting duped or maybe Aeolus himself was. For now the only thing he could do was press the story on for more information. **"And I assume that you heard this story through his words only?"** he asked.

The magi yelled, **"Are you calling him a liar?! Because he ain't one for sure! His messenger drake came by and told him what happened today!"**

The horde leader heard Pyro telling him telepathically, '_Aeolus! I think we're helping the wrong dragon. Killing your own family seems much worse than anything Axle could ever do to become a traitor! And I don't think he's even that.'_

Aeolus replied to the cassare, _'You're probably right, Pyro. But we can't get to the conclusion until we hear the whole story from both sides and see through their lies.' _Then he looked back to Atlas and asked,**"So tell me about Axle, Atlas. How much do you know about him?"  
**  
Atlas answered, **"He's a nice dragon who wants to save his kingdom. He cares for his family's safety, his friends' safety, as well as ours."**

**"Really now, how so?" **asked Aeolus.

The magi told the story, **"When his friend and bodyguard died, Axle gave him a proper ceremony for his death. When some of his family died, he cried. Then when I fought a necromancer and his zombies, Axle came rushing over to save me. Axle warned me that traveling with him would be dangerous as the necromancer's goons would be coming after him, but I decided to travel with him anyway."**

Aeolus frowned in disapproval and scolded her, **"And you would bring your only known family left into harms' way for the sake of someone else."** He looked over to where the hatchlings were at and then back at her and continued, **"How foolish of you, Atlas!"**

The magi defended herself, **"Hey, I was pretty confident that I could handle the whole world, okay? I'm a dragon champion, I've fought and won all battles!"**

**"That doesn't mean that you'll always win and it certainly doesn't mean that you are invincible. You need to think rationally before you make decisions like that!" **Aeolus told her. **"What if you were killed, who would take care of your nieces? And what if they died, what will you have left of your sister or family for that matter, if all of your ancestors and descendants are dead or non-existent?"**

**"Alright, alright, sorry! I won't be stupid next time, alright?" **Atlas yelled, getting upset over the stress of having to listen to his rant. **"Besides, Axle already told me about this before."**

Aeolus started to see Axle in a more positive light and said, **"Hmm, so he really does care for others. He sounds nicer than what Dracul told to me."** Perhaps the red dragon lord may have been the one lying all along. If that's the case, then the horde shouldn't be helping Dracul and Arch at all.

**"Aeolus, you're the one being duped here, not me,"** the magi told him. **"If we don't stop Dracul now, he's going to get Axle and Mekarth killed and then there'll be no one left to take Shadow Wind as the new lord."**

**"Very well, we'll go save your friends and seize Dracul and Arch to hold trial," **said Aeolus. He looked to the brute dragon and ordered, **"Tavurth, you can let her go now."** The brute let go of the dragoness, letting her fall back to her fours, and stepped away from her.

The hatchlings bounded over to their aunt's side, feeling safe now that the apparent danger was over. **"Aunt Atwas, are you okay?"** asked Danielle.

The magi looked down and smiled at them. **"I'm fine, don't you two worry,"** she answered. **"Aeolus is a friend, he won't hurt me."**

* * *

Meanwhile outside, the group chosen to go after the Shadow Wind dragons had split with Lutarn, Uvanis and two flower pygmies going after Arch and Axle, and Eitri &amp; three flower pygmies going after Dracul and Mekarth. Unavis, with his night vision, aided his group on where to go and how to avoid running into trees. They walked through they woods until they heard a roar and stopped. Uvanis asked, **"Is that them?"**

_'Probably, let's go!'_ said the storm dragon telepathically. They saw flashes of lightning and it confirmed to them that it was Arch and Axle fighting; they found them. They went on until they got to their ally and his enemy. Axle was covered in blood and Arch had a small gash on his side. It was still evident that the white dragon was alive, but barely though. The two spheres lay next to him, glowing a bright white, as the spheres' content began to disappear.

One of the flower pygmies asked, **"Arch! Is everything alright?"**

His question went unanswered as Arch said to the white dragon, **"Hmm, still alive Axle, impressive. But at what cost?"** As Axle changed into his human form, the gold dragon shook his head and said, **"You should be dead for your sin, but that is much better."** Arch turn away from the dragons and in a full sprint, he left the scene.

Axle, with much struggle, pushed himself to sit against a tree next to him and grabbed the now empty spheres. The man looked at the spheres before he let them drop and roll across the grass. Unavis stared down at the man's bloodied form and joked, **"Heh heh, look at him. All tired and tuckered out like a sleeping hatchling. Come on, Lutarn, let's take him back to 'daddy'." **The storm dragon picked up Axle in his jaw and carried him as they went to go look for Arch and Dracul.

Eitri had cast a fire aura to provide light for the flower pygmies to follow him. His group had reached Dracul and Mekarth. The night magi cast his magic chains spell at the attacking black dragon. Mekarth struggled to get out of the chains, but then the flower pygmies went to blow out their pollen breathes at him and made him drowsy. The red dragon went in with a one quick slash across the black's side combined with his darkness magic. This resulted with a piece of flesh torn off of Mekarth's side as the black dragon fell unconscious. Dracul went down to his ear and whispered something that the horde was unable to make out. Shortly, Arch came into the scene and said to his fellow lord, **"Time to go, Dracul. Would not want to be late for the entertainment."**

Then they warped out of sight without so much a "thank you" to the horde members who aided him. **"Uh... you're welcome?"** said a female flower pygmy, slightly annoyed.

* * *

**Author's Note:** The beginning where the baby-killer team is attacked may be edited depending on how I write Zeditha's character story in the future. Also the full fight between Axle &amp; Archin the woods may be shown in draco8967's 2nd characters story.

UPDATE: Dang, I can believe I didn't see the mistake I was supposed to fix: Eitri casting a tracking spell, which he doesn't have the ability to do. It's fixed now with Kekul doing that spell instead.

Uvanis (c) me  
Arch, Lavnta, Excab and Brancin (c) lorddraco8967  
Pyro (c) SparksflY


	26. Juna

**Chapter 25: Juna**

Back at the cave, Pyro, who had been watching the fight outside, spoke in an awkward nervous tone to the others, **"You should go help Axle..."**

Atlas looked over to the cassare in worry and asked, **"Axle? What happened to him? How is he doing?" **The magi and the hatchlings rushed over to the mouth of the cave where the cassare was at.

**"Is he hurt?"** asked Kylie, thinking the white dragon might have been harmed badly.

Aeolus caught Pyro's glance before he answered the family's questions, **"He probably is. But we can stop the dragon lords from harming your friends further."** He sent a telepathy to the dragons chosen to go after the brothers, _'Everyone, stop and desist attacking Axle and Mekarth. It seems that Dracul may have been lying to us this whole time. I want you to reprimand him and Arch as well.'_

But unfortunately, the response he got from Eitri said, _'It's too late, sir! Dracul and Arch have already left. They teleported away from us.'_

_'What?!'_ Aeolus said in dismay. The Firestars and the other horde members looked at their leader's expression and got the feeling that something bad had happened.

Another response he got from Lutarn this time said, _'I don't see Arch anywhere and I can't smell his scent anymore.'_ Many similar responses from the rest of the horde members telling the disaster dragon about the dragon lords' absence.

Aeolus was vexed by this news, but kept his composure in telepathy. _'Well this is rather unfortunate. Fine then, bring Axle and Mekarth to me immediately. I need to cross-examine them and find out everything about their stories and Dracul,'_ he told them.

He looked to Atlas, who was worried about what was said in his telepathic conversation. **"Aeolus, what happened? Did anything bad happened to Axle or his brother?"** she asked.

Before Aeolus could answer, they dragons felt a gust of wind entering the cave and they all looked to see a silver dragoness asking in a nice tone, **"Um, would anyone here happen to know two dragons by the names of Axle Incarus and Mekarth Incarus?" **

The horde leader told her, **"We all do. If you're looking for them, I have some horde members of mine who are bringing them in at the moment."** Right at the next second, Eitri's group had warped inside the cave with Mekarth's body. The crimson flares hovered over the black dragon, where their fireballs' exposed the wound in their light.

**"That's Mekarth!"** Atlas cried out in shock by the black dragon's condition. Her nieces got frightened by the open wound and they let out their horrified screams.

Aeolus did not want the hatchlings to be traumatized by this, so he said to his horde, **"Get the hatchlings away from him, where they can't see him."**

The flower pygmies ushered the sisters away from Mekarth as one of the females reassured the hatchlings in a hushed tone,**"Don't worry, darlings. Everything will be alright."**

The silver dragoness instantly got scared for her brother, but also got aggressive to everyone. She started to snarl at the dragons around Mekarth. **"Just what did you do to Mekarth? Because if you did that to him, I will rip your heads from your necks,"** she growled at to the dragons that brought him back to the cave. Then when the smell of Axle's blood came closer from outside the cave, the dragoness got even more aggressive to the point where her snarls became a low pitch growl. **"You all have thirty seconds to tell me what the hell happen to my brothers, or I'll start shredding every one of you over grown lizards to pieces,"** she growled as she start to count at a not-so-slow pace.

Under the pressure of the dragoness's wrath, Eitri quickly spoke up and said apologetically, **"We're so sorry, ma'am. We got tricked by Dracul into thinking that they were the bad guys. So we helped him and Arch to attack them. Turns out that Dracul was the real villain here."** Then the smell of blood drew closer to the cave stinging the atmosphere with a metallic scent.

Everyone saw Lutarn's group coming in with the bloodied Axle. Uvanis reported to his leader, **"Aeolus, we got Axle back."** The storm dragon set him on the cave floor for everyone to see.

Atlas's eyes went wide with shock and horror. **"Axle!"** she shouted in alarm. The silver dragoness looked over to the mouth of the cave and gasped at her "human" brother's condition.

Aeolus looked over at the healer dragon and told him urgently, **"Hewey, come over and heal these brothers immediately."**

**"Right away!"** Hewey replied. He ran over to Mekarth first since he was the nearest. The pygmy dragons got out of the way to let the healer dragon do his work. Hewey begun to use healing magic on the wound to restore the lost tissue.

The silver dragoness changed her form almost on a instance as she took off the cloak she had on, revealing her near halfling form with dragon claws, wings &amp; fangs and wrapped it around Axle to slow down the bleeding. The girl was black-haired with white skin, dark eyes, and wore a white dress with shoe of matching color. Aeolus, having witnessed her transformation, found that it looked very similar to that of the assassin-class hybrids he heard of once from Atlas. But these siblings weren't exactly hybrids, otherwise they would have gone into hunter's mode. Perhaps it was a special ability that's exclusive to their breed or maybe it was a magic spell that anybody could use if they knew how to do it. He looked to the magi and asked, **"Atlas, do you know how these friends of yours are able to turn into humans?"**

Atlas looked at him hesitantly for a bit, wondering if she should tell him how to change forms. She knew there were a few good humans out in the world, but the only good ones she had seen and heard about in her life were in Rudvich. All the ones over in Solomos were bad to the bone. Besides it was better to be safe having the vermin killed than sorry to have spared the killers and put innocent dragon lives at risk. So the magi became frank and answered, **"Yes I do, you just got to-"**

Atlas was interrupted by the "halfling's" worrying cry, **"Why is he not healing? Even if he is passed out, his magic should be healing him. I can understand if Mekarth is injured like he is and not healing, because he have no magic powers; but Axle has healing powers, yet he's not healing, almost as if he's been poison or had magic infused to his body."** Then the girl went to a wall and sat down against it and pulled her legs up to her chest, seeming almost a bit upset about what happen.

Atlas felt bad for the sister and sympathized with her problem. She looked to the disaster dragon and told him, **"We'll talk about this later. Right now she needs help."** Then she looked over to Axle and continued, **"And so does he."**

Aeolus nodded agreeing with her and replied, **"Indeed."** He turned his head over to the healer dragon and asked him, **"Hewey, are you done with Mekarth yet?"**

Hewey answered, **"Not yet, but I'm almost done." **The wound's tissue was restored by a quarter away. It won't be too long until the black dragon was fully healed.

The disaster dragon was a bit glad with the progress done. **"Well when you're finished with him, be sure to heal Axle next, okay?"** he said.

Atlas walked over to the sad girl and asked, **"You're Juna right?"** She remembered the drake saying that Axle had a sister who got kidnapped.

The halfling looked up at her said in a tone that was a bit sad, but also with a hint of warning, **"I am; and seeing how you are with Axle and you know what the changing spell is and how it works, you also know there are backlashes to it."**

**"Yeah, I'm aware of that,"** the magi replied, remembering the awkward feel of being human. Aeolus listened in on their conversation so that he could get whatever info is needed to learn how to change forms. Shapeshifting would be a useful ability in getting closer to humans without suspicion and learning everything about them before going in for the kill.

Juna sat her head back on her knees as she keep an eye on Axle. **"Those two are all that is left in this world that I call family, but I'm mainly worried about Axle's condition. I have seen him heal rapidly from wounds like those, but he's not healing from those. Something not right about those wounds at all,"** the girl sighed as she finish.

Atlas answered her concern with a frown, **"I know why it's like that, Juna. It's because Spinx found us and ambushed us."**She would have growled if she wanted to, but that urge was suppressed by sympathy for the girl.

Aeolus's mind lit with realization as to who this necromancer that attacked Atlas earlier was. **"Did you say Spinx?"** he asked.

The magi answered, **"Yes I did. What, did Dracul told you about him, too?"**

**"He did! He's a "special" human working for him,"** the disaster dragon replied, repeating how Dracul described the necromancer.

Atlas now knew why the necromancer wanted Axle dead. **"So that Spinx bastard really is league with Dracul. That's why he's after Axle. If the Incarus family is dead, then no one would be left to take leadership. Spinx was chosen by Dracul for that purpose,"** she growled.

The disaster dragon growled in distaste, **"Such a dishonorable way to obtain rule and power."**

As Juna came off the wall, she spoke, **"Well you are partly right about Spinx. Yes, he in a league with Dracul; and yes, he's after Axle. But the part, that special part, is his skills. His tracking skills, swordsmanship, archery, and poison knowledge. He could very much track us right now and he has the power to back him up as well."** Then she growled with vengeance, **"And if anyone's going to kill him, that's going to be me, because I spent the last two months in a damn cell because of him."**

The magi said to Aeolus, **"You won't believe the two zombies he sent at me; they were dragon lords. He said they were tough to kill; hell, my light lasers didn't do much to them. But I didn't get to see how long they could endure because our fight got stopped when Axle came."**

Aeolus made a short hum while he was thinking. **"Interesting,"** he said. Zombies that were resistant to light magic and maybe fire as well; they sounded like challenging indeed. The horde leader thought about coming up with some solution to help Atlas and company defeat the undead lords later.

Juna's head kind of lifted up from her knees before explaining, **"You would be talking about Lord Tork and Lord Eve. These two's powers are unmatched when they team up with each other. One use magic to stop a target from leaving, the other will burn or drown the target down; and if you use any type of spell at him, he copies it and sends it right back at you with even more power. They were among the top of the dragon lords, just below two others that could even match them; our father was below both of them, but still made up the fifth slot of the dragon lords."**

The horde was in awe of what the dragon lords were capable of. **"That sounds incredible. What breed were they?"** Aeolus asked. If there were any dragon breeds out there in Rudvich with abilities like that of Lord Tork and Lord Eve, then having them in his horde would be valuable assets in terms of power. He would trap humans and other enemies in one place and their mages would be destroyed by their own spells.

The halfling got right up and looked at the horde leader in suspicion, **"Why ask that? What could you possible gain from their type of breed?"**

Aeolus came up with a righteous reason, that would match one of his intents while hiding the other from Juna. It wouldn't do his campaign good if she knew about his goal to destroy all of humanity in Solomos. She might try to interfere. **"So that we can find dragons like them and train against them to learn how to defeat Spinx's zombies as well as Dracul's minions,"** the horde leader told her.

Juna looked at him with a bit of a glare and retorted, **"Ya, have fun with that. Lord Eve's water and fire spell can be learn by anyone and are common, but Lord Trok's are uncommon and he was the only one in Shadow Wind that know them, to my knowledge."** She grinned at busting Aeolus's bubble and continued, **"And Spinx's undead are easy to take care of, if you know what to expect."**

Aeolus was annoyed with the way the girl had responded to him. Though that was probably because she was still upset with him for attacking her brothers. The last part of her words sounded contradictory to what Atlas had said about Spinx's claim of the undead dragon lords being hard to kill and her experience with them. She probably might have been only referring about the regular zombies, but the disaster dragon couldn't help but feel suspicious that the girl was hiding something from him. Aeolus put his irritation to the side and said calmly, **"Very well then, I'll have Atlas tell me about their powers, so we can work on learning them for ourselves."** He had the magi and fire dragons for that purpose of them learning new spells. With those powers at hand, his horde will be even stronger. Speaking of Atlas, the disaster dragon looked at her with an expression of regret as he said, **"Forgive me, Atlas. I should have known there was something off about Dracul when he mentioned he had a human working for him."**

Atlas knew that Aeolus had a strong hatred of the human race, but she felt compelled to try to change his opinion on them. **"Actually Aeolus, not all humans are bad,"** she told him.

The horde leader as well as his members were appalled by what the magi had just said. **"What's that?"** he growled. He hoped that his friend wasn't saying what he heard she said.

Atlas wasn't unnerved by the surrounding irritated dragon. She had to say this. **"I'm saying that there's a few good humans in this world, well at least here in Northeast Rudvich,"** she said.

**"And what good humans would you know of in this continent, Atlas?"** Aeolus questioned skeptically. **"As far as I know, any of these "good" humans can turn out to be deceits and liars."**

The magi rebuked, **"Because one of them freed my brother-in-law in Southeast Rudvich. He purchased John's freedom and did nothing to backstab him, unlike those bums in back in Solomos who betrayed you. Him freeing John was how he made it all the way to the northeast, how my sister got her mate, and how my nieces were born."**

The disaster dragon, who was not convinced, asked, **"Well that's one human, I don't suppose you could think of any more?"**

**"Oh I can,"** Atlas said. **"Two human siblings, Henry and Yukki. We stayed over at their place for one night. Henry shared some delicious treats with Kylie, Yukki treated my wounds that I suffered at the hands of hunters, and they had some fun with my nieces, making Henry dress in girly clothes and keeping them entertained."**

A crimson flare whispered to another, **"He sounds like a cross-dresser."** The other pygmy nodded before they started snickering.

The magi continued to speak, **"And Axle's bodyguard was a human and a friend. He sacrificed his life so that he and my nieces can be safe. Now let me ask you this, what would these humans possibly gain from doing all these stuff, huh?"** She hoped that her experiences will be able to save the lives of good humans from the Vulture Horde's wrath.

Aeolus growled a bit before he said, **"Fine, I suppose maybe there are a few good diamonds among the coals. But that doesn't change the fact that a majority of humans are evil and that they're all a threat to us in their own ways."** By now, Hewey was done healing Mekarth, so he went over to Axle's body and began to work his magic on him.

Juna turned her attention away from the healing dragon to tell the horde leader, "**I will also add to that list of good humans, the whole damn Incarus Army, which by the way are almost all dead, minus the ones in Axle's small castle, which is still about 400 left. And then there a few I know personally that helped me before: one male by the name of Grander and a female by the name of Kuala. If they were not around during a time that Shadow wind was attacked, I would not be alive right now."** Then she gave him a glare and continued, **"Though I will agree with that most humans are a greedy bunch of people, but I will say that some are not and even some of those are willing to lay down their life to save another. I would say Axle is the one here who knows best of humans laying down their life for another."**

What the halfling said had conflicted with the disaster dragon's experience and knowledge of humans. He felt inclined to stick to the belief that all humans were bad, but at the same time he couldn't deny their words as he couldn't find a selfish reason to why a few humans would give up their life for dragons. The disaster frowned, giving up trying to rebuttal to deny the existence of good humans. Besides, he didn't want to seem like a fool. **"Hmm, so from how you and your brother knows this much of humans, I take it that you rule over their race in Shadow Wind?"** he asked.

The girl said, **"No, we were the protectors of the city, and before you say that we were force there, we volunteered, I mean the original dragon lords. Shadow Wind's history is by far, a unique city. The city, on the time table, is ancient, but when it was found by outsiders, was only about forty years ago."** A small growl was heard escaping from Mekarth's throat. He was still a bit passed out, but he seems to be coming around.

A confused crimson flare scratched his head and asked, **"Wait, how can the city be ancient, if it was only founded forty years ago?"**

Juna explained the story, **"The city was created about a thousand years ago, but was found by the outside world only 40 years ago. It was created by all type of species, dragon, humans, and halflings. The nine original creators, three of each, thought of the roles each species will play in Shadow Wind; dragon lords got the role of protector, halfling lords got the role of the laws, and humans are the workers and extra protection."**

**"A city made by everyone..."** the crimson flare sighed to himself in wonder. Then he asked, **"Do they all live in peace?"**

The halfling replied with a simple nod, **"For the most part, they live in peace among each other."**

**"And what about the rest?"** asked Tavurth, showing a clear dislike for the humans. **"Do these humans sometimes hunt and enslave us dragons?"**

* * *

Meanwhile back in Solomos. The Vulture horde was still waiting on their leader's return. Some of the dragons went to resume their sleep for the time being. Bam wondered how his cousin and everyone was doing as they tried to capture Axle. He imagined that things were going pretty well; after all, his cousin was pretty smart with his tactics. His thoughts were soon interrupted by a loud echoing roar from the woods. The noise had woken up the horde. **"What was that?!"** asked one of the dragons.

The dragons talked among themselves wondering who was out in the middle of the night. Since he was in charge of the horde for the time being, Bam decided to take action to prove that he can be just as good a leader as Aeolus. He won't let his cousin down. **"Well since we're awake, we might as well check out who it is. I'll bring a party of five dragons with me. They would be Enamora, Cirrus, Eatorn, Volkin, and Corona,"** he said. The chosen dragons came up to the navy blue dragon and awaited his next order, to which he said, **"Okay good. So while you guys stay here, my guys and I will go out and see who's there."** The horde agreed and Bam's group went to go look for the dragon. The navy blue felt excited about having power for once; he would get to be responsible and feel like a big dragon.

* * *

After Juna answered Tavurth's question, Pyro went up to Aeolus and smiled half-heartedly as he said, **"I think I'm going to leave. There isn't much I can help with, now. I should tell the others what happened."** He began to pad towards the cave entrance.

The horde leader gave a short nod in response and replied, **"Yes, please do. They're probably wondering what we're doing at the moment."**

Hewey finished healing up Axle and said, **"There; all done! We should just give them both some rest and they'll be fine when they wake up."** Atlas was grateful for the healer dragon's help. Now her friend and his brother can rest easy without dying from blood loss.

Juna went to her brother's and looked at the healer dragon gratefully while saying, **"Thank you."**

Hewey smiled at the halfling girl and responded, **"You're welcome."**

Then suddenly everyone started to smell smoke as if something out there was being lit on fire. They looked towards the outside of the cave to see the orange light from the woods with burst of birds, mostly crows, taking to the air while screeching loudly. It looked like there was a fire going on right now. **"Hmph, must be the work of some irresponsible dragon. Be right back, guys. I'm going to go put out the fires,"** the magi said. She walked up to the cliff of the cave entrance and took off over the woods. She approached the light, getting closer and closer until the light turned into dancing flames in her view. Once she got there, she landed in the clearing that was untouched by the surrounding fire. Atlas got to work by casting her ice stream magic at the wildfire. The line of light blue frost snaked around through the air and doused out every fire it touched. The nine waterhorse dragons around here, who were dousing out the fires, made her work easier.

But then more fires appeared in the distance as if they were spreading fast. The dragoness heard the cassare asking her telepathically, _'Do you need help over there? I see flames...'_

Atlas replied, _'Nah, I'm good. I got this shit handled.'_ So she and the waterhorses went to put out the new fires.

* * *

Back at the cave, the horde and Juna watched the glow in the woods to see how Atlas was making progress on putting out the forest fire. When they saw another glow appear even closer to the cave, the halfling girl commented, **"That is not natural or by accident."**

Aeolus looked down at her and asked, **"So if these two are not the causes, then what could it be?"** Then he remembered Juna saying that a certain necromancer could track them down. **"Spinx..."** he murmured with realization. **"The fire out there; it must be a trap set ablaze by him so that he could lure one of you over to him. If that's the case, then Atlas is in grave danger,"** the disaster dragon said seriously.

* * *

Thick clouds covered the dark sky and rained down a storm of heavy rain down onto the burning woods. The fires all died down from the spell cast by combined might of the waterhorses and a gray dragon. Atlas felt bombarded with the millions of cold rain drops splashing down onto her and soaking her red-orange scales wet. The magi disliked being out in a storm like this as it was pretty uncomfortable getting wet when you don't need it. _'Well it looks like these guys got it handled. I better get back to the others right,'_ she thought.

Juna point to the birds that flew overhead and said, **"It already too late; Spinx knows where we are now and he knows Atlas came from here, so he knows that she's out there on her own."** Everyone noticed that the birds acted oddly as they flew. **"Birds do not fly in rain of any kind,"** she said as she walked to the front of the cave as she looked at the birds.

Aeolus agreed; it was very strange indeed. They were most likely magic fabricated by Spinx's powers. **"Well then she can't stay here in this cave tonight. It'll be too dangerous for your family and hers, knowing that Spinx can come here and murder you in your sleep. We'll have to go to Solomos,"** he told the halfling. He formed a telepathic link with the magi and said, _'Atlas, return to the cave now. That fire out there was Spinx's doing; he knows where you are.'_

The shocked reply from the magi said, _'What; he was here?! Well that means... Oh crap! I'm coming, Aeolus.'_

* * *

Atlas pictured the spring cave with everybody and channeled up her magic energy to teleport back. But she quickly stopped herself when she heard small footsteps nearby. **"Hmm?"** she hummed to herself curiously. She cast her light aura spell and her body started to shine like a light. She was able to see a teen girl alone in the woods picking up ashes off the ground. **"What?"** the magi whispered to herself, so as not to attract the human's attention. This was curious; what was a human doing out alone in the woods at a night? Shouldn't she be in bed or in the city? The magi's eyes scanned the girl from her feet to her head to see and determine whether she was a threat or not. There didn't appear to be any weapons on her, which was even more crazy for her to be outside. Humans were so strange sometimes.

The girl jerked her head up as if she was startled by something. Then she reached for something only to find she didn't have it. The girl gasped as the ashes fell from her fingertips before she ran away through the woods. The magi paid her no thought as she didn't feel like going after her. Aeolus's telepathic voice in her head told her, _'Atlas, what's taking so long? You need to come back to us now.'_

_'I know. Hang on, I'm coming,'_ she told him. She pictured the spring cave in her mind and warped there. The nearby horde dragons leaned back from Atlas as they were startled from her sudden appearance.

Aeolus looked to her and said, **"Good, now that you're back. I can show you an image of where you and your family and friends will be sleeping, too."** He formed a telepathic link with the magi and shared with her the mental image of the horde's camp by the lake. _'This is where you'll be tonight; by the lake in Solomos,'_ he told her. _'My horde will be destroying an evil human army tonight, but I don't need you or your friends to come with us. Remember, you have them and your nieces to take care of,'_ he told her.

_'Yeah, yeah, I know. I die and my nieces have no one left,'_ Atlas said, knowingly. She did wanted to join him on taking down the dragon killers, but she knew her friend would never allow that, especially after telling him that she had nieces yesterday.

_'I'm glad you understand,'_ the disaster dragon said. 'Now let's send everyone there immediately.' Aeolus turned to Eitri and told him, **"Eitri, we're going back to the horde. Teleport us all now."**

**"Okay Aeolus,"** the night magi said. So the two magis teleported everyone to the horde's camp.

Aeolus formed a telepathic link with his cousin and told him, _'Bam, we're back and we brought over Atlas and her nieces as well as Axle as his two siblings.'_

* * *

Meanwhile, Bam's group went around the forest as Enamora and Corona provided light in the darkness with their flames. The other dragons served as scent detectives while Bam called out. **"Hello? Is anybody there?"** he asked.

Volkin, Eatorn, and Cirrus caught a scent and it was right above them. **"Bam, is it? I think I smell someone,"** said the female black ghost dragon.

The navy blue looked at her and asked, **"Huh? Where?"** Suddenly the group saw a red dragon dropping down in the middle of them, startling everyone, especially Bam, by surprise.

**"Hello there,"** the red dragon rumbled. **"Looking for somebody?"**

Bam answered, **"Oh yeah, we heard a roar out here and we decided to go look for somebody. Were you the one making that roar?"**

The red dragon looked amused and answered, **"Oh you mean my promise. Yes it was loud... I'm looking for a dragon named Aeolus and his horde. I've heard they have vowed to kill all humans which is what I plan to do till I die."**

The navy blue smiled in joy at having a new potential recruit for the horde. **"Oh that's us. We're his horde, but I'm not Aeolus. I'm his cousin, Bam; I'm in charge for now while he's out dealing with a really wicked dragon, who has slaves and had killed another dragon,"** he said. Thinking the red dragon might go into shock or disbelief over the statement of a dragon being as evil as the humans, Bam said honestly, **"I know this sounds crazy, but it's true. Another dragon, a lord by the way, came by and told us this."** Suddenly, he got a telepathic message from Pyro stating that Dracul was the real culprit who lied to the horde and that Axle was a nicer dragon than originally told. The royal blue froze in shock and he replied to the cassare, _'Wait what? We've been tricked?' _After hearing everything about what happened on Aeolus's side, Bam replied, _'__Oh, so that's what happened. Well that's a shocking twist. I can't believe we've been playing for the wrong team. I sure hope my cousin can find some way to make up for this. I mean this kind of deception can ruin our horde's reputation for sure.' _Then he looked back at the red and corrected his story, **"****Well actually, I just heard just now that it turns out the dragon lord… Dracul, was it… had tricked us to go after Axle so that he can get rid of him and take over Shadow Wind with an iron claw. He even had a human try to kill my cousin's friend and her family."** Thought of working for a dragon who turned out to be evil and did worse than the supposed criminal was quite disturbing indeed. Bam resumed talking, **"****Anyway, my cousin's going to come back really soon, so when he gets back, I'm going to introduce you to him." **

The red dragon looked at him curiously and asked, **"Alright where do I meet your leader?"**

The navy blue answered, **"He'll be right over at the lake where the rest of the horde is."** Then he heard his cousin announcing his return. _'Oh what great timing, cous! Because I just found a new recruit just now,'_ he said happily.

The disaster dragon sounded impressed with his cousin and said, _'Well very good, Bam. Did you inquire about his name, powers, capabilities, and weaknesses?'_

_'Oh no, I haven't done that. I'll go ask him now,'_ the navy blue said. He asked the red, **"So stranger, my cousin wants to know what your powers and talents are that will help out against the humans. And also, what's your name?"**

The red cocked his head smiling slightly and saying, **"My name is Sargoth. My powers aren't unique or extraordinary but I can survive." **Without breaking his glance away from Bam, vines magically appeared as they curled quickly around the tree beside him. It creaked and groaned for a second then the vines uprooted it, then grew taller, then threw the tree deep into the forest.

**"Whoa!"** Bam said as he and the other dragons with him were impressed.

One of the dragons whispered, **"I wonder if he could trap the humans with these vines."**

**"He probably could,"** another one whispered back to his companion.

With a toothy grin, Bam said, **"That power looks amazing! I bet you my cousin will find it quite useful to us."** Then he asked the next question, **"He'll probably let you in, but he also wants to know what your weaknesses are, so that we can find some way compensate for them in our future raids."**

Sargoth sighed reluctantly and said, **"I tend to get battle fury and I'm susceptible to other dragons' magic such as mind controlling and such. If it is basic I can block it with stone walls. I can breathe fire, but that's all."**

Bam gave a quick short nod after hearing everything and said, **"Okay, I gotcha."**

Then the red dragon asked, **"So where are we going?"**

**"We're going back to the lake. Come on, we got to go see my cousin. He's back now,"** the navy blue answered before he went to the back of his group. He took the lead back as the others followed him.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Well this chapter went longer than I thought; guess we'll have to see the camp raid in the next chapter. Anyway, after looking at the poll results on DeviantArt, it looks like the majority wants Aeolus to stay an evil genocidal maniac. So if the audience wants that, I'll give it to them. Also, I need help with editing this part of Juna's dialogue:

**The city, on the time table, is ancient, but when it was found by outsiders, was only about forty years ago.**

It looks weird and I don't know how I would say it with correct grammar.

Juna, Kuala, and Grander (c) lorddraco8967  
Sargoth (c) Cenor


	27. Assault on the Army

**Chapter 26: Assault on the Army**

After a day of water magic practice and hanging out with Ronan and Drake, Minerva bid her guests good night and went to turn off all the lights in the house. Then she came back up and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and take a shower. After the woman was done, she looked out the window to see the last few fireworks in the distance. It ended with a big firework image of a dragon and a human hugging each other. It was a big way to end the festival with a symbol of peace and harmony between dragons. It was quite pleasant in the woman's opinion, but at the same time, she would imagine a lot of conservative and racist humans would be offended by image. She couldn't wait to hear about that on the morning news tomorrow. Minerva put on her pajamas and went to sleep.

* * *

Juna walked over to Axle and change into her dragon form. Then she picked up her brother in her jaw and moved him over by Mekarth, where set him against the black dragon's side. The silver dragoness sat down next to them and looked at Aeolus. **"Thank for your hospitality, but it is getting late and these two need rest. I would not want to keep your horde members worrying about you now,"** Juna said biting down a snarl. It was clear as day that she had a distaste for the horde leader and she was not trying to hide it.

**"Of course not, I was about to leave to have a discussion with my horde,"** Aeolus said, holding back his offended feelings. Then he turned around walked over to the spot away from her. He had a gut feeling that Juna was going to oppose his campaign later and that she would do everything to keep his horde from getting too powerful. So he had to gain knowledge as quickly as possible before secrets would be hard to keep away. He formed telepathy with Atlas and asked, _'Atlas, since we last talked, did you learn any new spells?'_

_'Yes, I did. Why?'_ the magi asked.

_'Because I need some of these spells to destroy the humans,'_ Aeolus answered. Then remembering that Atlas's encounter of supposedly good humans, he quickly added, _'The bad ones, that is.'_

Atlas was taken by surprise at her friend's distinguishing of wicked men from the whole human race. But in a way, it made her feel glad and happy for him. She decided to answer him, _'Ha ha, I didn't think I'd see the day where you would start seeing humans in a more positive light. Did our experiences change your mind?'_

_'It did and I became enlightened. It seems like not all humans were as evil as I thought they were,'_ the disaster dragon said. Exactly, it wasn't the truth at all; he still believed that the whole race was terrible and only needed Atlas for his own ends. _'I do hope to meet these nice humans of yours someday,'_ he said. _'But anyway, let's get back to the topic, what spells did you learn, Atlas?'_ He didn't want to take too long, since Juna was probably going to get her to keep quiet. Well why else would she ask Aeolus to leave them?

_'Just how to change into a human,'_ Atlas said.

_'How did you do it?'_ asked the disaster dragon, wanting to get his claws on that spell. _'It would be quite useful for us to get in closer to the humans and see whether they are good or now.'_

The magi said, _'Yes it will! Okay, here's how you do it.'_

After Atlas told him everything about the transformation spell, Aeolus said, _'Thank you, Atlas you are very much helpful! You have saved the lives of innocent humans we will encounter in our campaign, leaving only the vile ones to suffer.'_

_'Ha ha ha, thanks! Be sure to roast those scums dead, alright?'_ Atlas cheered.

_'I will,'_ Aeolus promised. After disconnecting telepathy, he thought to himself, _'All of them in Solomos as well as the rest of the world.'_ Not even Atlas and Juna's human friends will be spared.

The magi's excitement was cut short when she heard Juna snarl, **"So I take it you told him the spell Axle taught you then? What a good way to back stab Axle."**

Atlas whipped her head to meet the silver's glare and asked in confusion, **"Huh? What are you talking about?"** She didn't understand while sharing the spell was betraying Axle.

The silver dragoness growled, **"I did not get the nickname "sheath dragon" for no reason, nor will I let that slide between my talons. So really you have two choices; either A, you tell me what your friend wanted the spell for and what he plans on using it for, or B, you can remain silent and I can find out myself. And if I see or hear what I think he going to use it for, you or your damn friends won't want to be anywhere close to me, Axle, or Mekarth once we find out. Axle may be a forgiving type, but he does not look so kindly on betrayal."** Juna sounded like she meant what she said and it sounded more like a warning than a threat. **"And if I was you, I would be thinking really carefully about what weighs heavier, because both maybe end to a lost of some kind."**

Atlas felt mad about being treated like a bad guy and she didn't know why. **"Whoa, I don't know what you're getting all pissy about, sister. All Aeolus wanted to do with that spell was get in close to humans and learn about them so that he won't have to kill the good ones when his horde goes on their raids,"** she answered defensively.

The sisters were worried about their aunt receiving the hostility from the silver dragoness. Danielle asked, **"Aunt Atwas, why is she being mean to you?"**

The magi looked down at her niece and answered, "**She isn't. She's just pissed about me telling Aeolus how to change into a human."**

**"Why?"** asked Kylie, not understanding the harm behind that.

Juna got up and said, **"I'll take your word on it, but if it happens to still be what I think it will be, I will hold you accountable."** As the Firestars watched her walk away, Atlas looked at her puzzled. It seems to be going past her holding a grudge against Aeolus for the assault on her brothers. It looks she distrusts him as well. Then as the silver started to run into the covers of the night, she continued, **"I will also keep that a secret for right now, but if it end up being a threat to Rudvich or to anyone who lives up there, those two will know in a heart beat. Now I'm going to look around a bit and stretch my legs. Being lock up for two months does have it tolls."**

After she was gone, Atlas said after her, **"Oh come on! Aeolus is an honest dragon. I'm sure he won't come over to your continent and start all that ruckus."** Juna probably wouldn't hear her speak, but the magi felt like she had to let her thoughts out. The sisters watched a tree fly down into the lake and make a big and loud splash. Everybody turned their attention to lake where the noise was made.

Aeolus, having heard the conversation being taken between the two dragonesses, knew that it was even more evident that the silver was not stupid at all nor was she very approving of sharing spells with strangers. If he wanted his future operation in Rudvich to take place without anybody knowing much about his horde. He needed to find some way to secretly dispose of Juna. The horde leader thought about which dragons would be good for the job. Magis like Eitri, Enamora, and Kekul can help out with their magic spells. Though Eitri probably wouldn't be fit for the job since he probably got brainwashed by the idea of good humans existing. Tavurth, with his super strength and resistance to most magic, would be a good asset too. He may have listened to the dragonesses' experiences, but he was still skeptical. Then there was Pyro to disable Juna's magic, if she had any. But Aeolus would have to ask what his opinion on humans was now. The flower pygmies can knock her out with the sleeping pollen. With those dragons in mind, the horde leader needed to think of the perfect time to use them. Right now it's not, because there are no scapegoats or anything that will give false explanations as to what happened. So for now, he would have to wait until the right time came.

As the disaster dragon got to the middle of the horde, he heard the call of his cousin shouting, **"Hey Aeolus, we're back!"**

The leader looked to see Bam return with his group and the recruit. Eyeing the red dragon, he said, **"So this is our new recruit. Bam, what can you tell me about him?"**

The royal blue answered, **"Oh Sargoth here can summon vines from underground. We saw him lift up a tree with them and threw it away."**

**"Oh yes, I saw and heard it splash down into the lake,"** Aeolus said.

Bam explained, **"Ah, so that's one of his powers you just witnessed. He also breathes fire and block basic spells with his stone walls, but... he's susceptible to other dragons' magic and he gets battle fury."**

**"Okay then,"** the disaster dragon said. Then he looked at Sargoth and said, **"Sargoth, is it? We are going to destroy a huge army camp tonight. After Pyro kills off the halfling mages, I will need you to place stone walls around the camp to prevent the humans from escaping. Our magi dragons can help you with that as well if it seems too much of a work for you."** Then he continued speaking, **"Once we have the camp trapped, I need you to join in and help us annihilate every soldier you see so that they won't kill any more dragons again. Do you understand all that?"**

Sargoth smiled and replied, **"Aye sir! With a magi, I could bring a wall up as tall as their buildings in five minutes or less."**

**"That's good,"** Aeolus replied. **"Now come, it's time we get our assault started now."** The group went over back to the horde. The disaster dragon announced to everyone, **"Vulture Horde, it's time we finally go out and put an end to the army once and for all. Magis, teleport us now!"** As all the horde members roared enthusiastic battle cries, Aeolus gave the new magis a mental image of where they were supposed to go. Eitri and the magics teleported the whole horde over the cliff where the Vulture Horde found the camp a few days ago. The majority of the humans' camp was asleep with most of the humans with a few watchtowers looking out for dragons and a few guards walking the camp with torches in their hands for light. **"Looks like we're going to have a make a new change of plans. We need to take out the watch towers first before we can send in Zylanon. Flower pygmies, put the humans at the towers to sleep before you kill them. Then move the lights around a bit so as not to attract suspicion from the guards. But don't let the lights hit Zylanon. We can't afford to have him be seen."**The flower pygmies flew to the watch towers and avoided getting caught by the lights. Once there, they put the men to sleep with their pollen breaths before they killed them. With their task done, the flower pygmies confirmed the deaths of their targets to their leader via telepathy. Aeolus looked to the dragon beside him and said, **"Now Zylanon, take out the guards."** The shadow dragon went into the camp and melted down into his shadow form. When he neared the guards, his head lunged down to snap down the guards and eat them. When all the guards were dead, the horde leader said to blackphase dragons, **"Go find the halflings now."** The black ghosts went into spirit form and went through each tent until they found the halflings. The black ghost dragons sent Pyro a telepathic image of where they found the halflings.

The cassare nodded and flew over to the camp to meet the black ghosts. Aeolus waited for Pyro to confirm his kill when he heard him asked telepathically, _'Should I attack?'_

The leader answered, _'Yes Pyro, you should. It's what I needed you to do.'_

Sargoth sent a telepathic message to Aeolus, _'Just give me the word, sir, and those walls will be up in no time.'_

Aeolus responded, _'I know; I'll let you know soon after Pyro kills the halflings.'_

* * *

The black ghosts stood by Pryo, who stood away from the tent, and waited for him to kill the sleeping halflings inside. Eatorn got a bit restless and whispered, **"Well, what are you waiting for? Crush them! Pull them out and eat them; do something."**

Pyro rolled his eyes and said, **"Ok, ok, I'm on it."** He slipped through the entrance to the tent, where the few halflings were sleeping. The black ghosts stayed outside and listened for sounds of the cassare's assassinations.

* * *

With the Vulture Horde gone, Atlas decided that it was time to go to bed. She brought her nieces close to her and said, **"Come on, girls. It's time to catch some sleep."** The hatchlings slept by her side as Atlas brought her head down to the ground and closed her eyes. But then her sleep was short-lived by ten seconds when Juna appeared before her as a halfling.

The girl bit down a snarl as she said, **"We need to talk in private, away from the hatchlings and my brothers." **Then she walked a nice length away from the group. The magi wondered what the halfling woman wanted this time before she got up.

The hatchlings were woken up by the movement and they looked up to see their aunt has gotten up. **"Aunt Atwas?" **Danielle asked.

The magi looked back at the whiptail and assured her, **"I'll be back. Just go back to sleep."** The hatchlings closed their eyes and rested again. Atlas went up to Juna and asked quietly, **"What is it you want this time?"**

The halfling shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest before asking, **"What are the Vulture Hoard after and is it just to this region? That's all; after that you can go back to sleep."** Then she said bluntly, **"The only reason I'm asking is because I over heard your friend a bit about attacking a camp before they teleported. That's all I want to know."**

**"So you want to know about the Vulture Horde, huh?"** Atlas asked. **"Okay fine, I'll tell you."** Then she started explaining what she knew, **"The Vulture Horde was originally going to destroy all the humans in Solomos. But ever since we discussed the existence of good humans to Aeolus, he decided to spare only the good ones alive. And to do that, I think he's going to go disguise himself as a human and go into the settlements to see which ones are worth saving and not. That's all I can tell you about the Vulture Horde, because frankly that's all I've heard."**

Juna nodded her head in respond before walking away towards her brothers. It was evident that she thought something else, but she was keeping quite about it. Atlas wondered what was on the shapeshifter's mind concerning Aeolus. Perhaps she thought that he was going to destroy Shadow Wind? If so, she was wrong. Aeolus was always honest to Atlas from the time they had first met over a century ago. There's no way he would tell her he was going to do something and then go against his word and the magi knew that well. The magi went back to her nieces and fell asleep.

* * *

For the first few seconds, there was mostly silence with the quiet sounds of Pyro's body movement. But then came the surprised cries of the halflings, before they were quickly silenced by death. After a brief moment of nothing happening, Pyro came out with his claws caked with blood and a stupid smile on his face.

Confirming that everything had gone as planned, Eatorn sent a telepathic message to his horde leader. _'That halflings are dead, Aeolus,'_ he said.

* * *

_'Good start attacking the humans now!'_ the disaster dragon said. Then he turned to the rest of his horde and told them, **"Vulture Horde, it's time to attack! Sargoth, Eitri, Enamora, Kekul, spread out and barricade the camp. Keep the humans trapped inside."** Sargoth and the magis flew out and went to their own positions at the camp's borders. Eitri at the west, Sargoth at the south, Kekul at the north, and Enamora at the east. They started raising stone walls off the ground to prevent the enemies' escape. Rising into the air, the red dragon created a hedge of thorny bushes inside the wall. Just as he came close, he blew a fire ball into the bushes. The bushes crackled and burst into flames as Sargoth flew past and started on the massacre.

Pyro and the black ghosts smiled after watching the creation of the stone walls. The humans began to panic, running around and scrambling for their weapons. **"Lets have some fun,"** the cassare said.

**"Yeah!"** Eatorn agreed with enthusiasm for human blood. Pyro flew over to one of the smaller tent, where the humans were just waking up, and landed on top of it, crushing the people inside. He blew fire all around the camp, setting some of the other tents ablaze. The black ghost dragons pursued their prey and snapped their jaws at the humans they can get, piercing the flesh and crushing the soldiers' bones with their teeth. Volkin caught a man by slamming her front foot down on him. The frightened man tried to free himself, but the weight of the dragoness would not let him go. He met his death by the sharp teeth closed around his neck.

The rest of the Vulture Horde went to attack the campsite. The humans taken aback by the ambush came out of their tents with weapons as some of them died in their sleep and some getting killed before they were ready for combat. Aeolus and the surrounding crimson flares flew out of way of the arrows shot by the archers before disaster dragon electrocuted them with his lightning breath.

The horde continued to decimate the army's numbers as the dragons burned each individual and groups with their fire breaths. Aeolus hovered over the camp watching the panicking soldiers and burning tents below. _'The plan worked pretty well. These humans have become nothing without their halflings to back them up. They can't even function right since they're taken off guard. Tonight's victory will be a piece of cake,'_ he thought with pride.

Orion the magma dragon blow out a spray of lava at the humans armed with spears. They burned, screamed, and melted into the lava. **"This one's for Dedries and our horde!"** he roared with vengeance.

Tavurth clamped his jaws down on a few humans and crushed their bodies with his strong teeth. After eating them, he yelled,**"And this is for the Sunlight Horde as well!"**

Corona the angry phoenix dragoness chased after a fleeing man, who was terrified for his life. Her orange body became covered in bright flames and she roared, **"And this is for Leafwing!"** Then she charged into the man fast and burned him alive.

A man and a woman were swinging their knives at the surrounding wasp and leaf pygmies. The wasp pygmies stung the soldiers with their stingers while the leaf pygmies blew out tiny fireballs. Despite their injuries, the pair courageously fought on for their lives. The man stabbed one of the wasp pygmies through the abdomen with his knife and decapitated the other. The stabbed wasp pygmy dropped dead with his blood pouring out, while the decapitated wasp's head rolled across the ground as blood gushed out of his neck like a geyser. The woman stabbed and wounded a leaf pygmy, who dropped on the ground and started dying of blood loss. Then she killed two other pygmies, a wasp and a leaf. A female wasp pygmy got really angry and got onto the woman from behind and brought her stinger around to penetrate the throat. The female soldier's eyes went wide in shock and fear. She tried to scream, but it was drowned out by the blood gushing through her throat and mouth. She clasped her hand around the wound before she died.

The man was too busy fighting to grieve for his companion. After stabbing a leaf pygmy through the wing, all the pygmies retreated as the wounded leaf fought against his pain to leave. The man got confused as he wondered why his little enemies had fled all-of-a-sudden. His thoughts were cut short when he grabbed by Udiya, who then covered his body in electricity to electrocute the man. After dropping his victim, Udiya told his leader through telepathy, _'Aeolus, I've found five pygmies here dead.'_

The disaster dragon received the message and replied, _'Dead, hmm? Then I guess we'll have to stop the ground assault and bring out the tornado.' _It was kind of disappointing, since he wanted the fight to last until the end. But having at least one dead horde member in a fight wasn't going to be good as he needed numbers saved to combat larger and stronger groups later.

The ember dragon then asked, _'Speaking of tornado, why didn't we use that earlier? That could have saved the lives of these pygmies.'_

Aeolus explained, _'Because I needed to give the horde some experience in fighting humans up close for when we're in dragon-occupied human territories like Windfall and Shadow Wind. Since I can't use my tornado at the expense of our kind, it wouldn't do good to fight the humans unprepared, especially when they're up against magic-users like necromancers.'_ He had been referring to Spinx for example. The leader knew that magic-users were far more dangerous than physical attackers and shooters. So he needed his horde, especially the former slaves, to get some experience fighting the weakest type first before they can move on to the stronger ones.

_'Ah, kind of like how we went to free the slaves, huh? Okay, I understand,'_ said Udiya.

_'Anyway, I'm going to need everybody out of the way so that I can get to work on ending this faster,'_ said Aeolus. Then he told the ember dragon, _'Look for a magma dragon named Orion and take him out of here before I use my earthquake to stall the humans.'_

_'Got it!'_ Udiya replied. Then he went to look for the magma dragon. After flying over tents and dead human bodies, he found the magma dragon burning down more soldiers in lava. The ember dragon called out to him, **"Orion, we have to go! Aeolus wants us all to get out of the way."**

Orion stopped his rampage and looked to the approaching ember as he asked, **"What? Is he bringing out his tornado?"**

**"Yes, he is. Come on, let's go!"** Udiya told him. He picked up the magma dragon and carried him off the ground. _'I got him, sir!'_ he told his leader.

After hearing the message, Aeolus slammed his foot on the ground and created an earthquake to shake the humans off their feet. He then told his horde telepathically, _'Vulture Horde, I need you all to leave the camp as I will conjure a tornado soon. Magis, teleport every dragon you see flying off into the air.'_ The horde started to fly into the sky as the magi dragons teleported each and everyone they saw before warping out of sight. Once, he was the only one left, Aeolus stopped his earthquake and unleashed his devastating tornado as a final strike on the camp. The remaining soldiers were sucked into the windy vortex. _'Now magis, combine your magic flames into the tornado!'_ the disaster dragon ordered. The magis sent their fire streams into the tornado, which then turned into a flaming twister to burn all the humans inside. Once all the soldiers were dead, Aeolus dispelled his tornado and let the bodies fall.

Now the whole camp was destroyed; there was nothing but burnt tents, bodies, and objects that had been scattered into a mess. The horde came back to their leader, to which the disaster dragon told, **"Vulture Horde, well done! The army has been decimated. Now dragons everyone in the rainforest will sleep peacefully without fear of these apes ever again."** The horde roared out their cheers until they were silent again. **"But our victory did not come without a price to pay. Udiya had witnessed the deaths of five pygmies in combat. They will be missed forever and their sacrifice honored,"**Aeolus said in a disheartened tone. Udiya had brought the bodies back for all to see. The former slaves, who knew these pygmies were all saddened by their deaths as they dropped their heads in grief with some in tears. After a moment of silence to pay respected to the departed, Aeolus said, **"Now magis, take us back to the lake, so we can sleep."** The magi dragons teleported the horde back to the lake.

As the dragons went to their spots to sleep with Hewey and Cirrus healing the wounded; Atlas, who wasn't fully asleep yet, heard the sounds of moment and formed a telepathic communication with the horde leader to asked, _'Hey Aeolus, how did the assault go?'_

_'Wonderful,'_ Aeolus replied. _'The humans' army is no more.'_ Then he laid down and went to sleep.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Since posting new chapter links onto each chapter is hard work, I'm going to split the list by 25s. So if you're in a chapter between 1 - 25, you're going to see a whole list of that and a pattern of chapter 26, 51, 76, etc. And if you're in a chapter between 26 - 50, you'll see a whole list of that and a pattern of chapter 1, 51, 76, etc. Get it? Also, since Eveeoni has made an original picture of Albel, I'm going to edit chapters with him in it to fit his new appearance. I know I should have done that some time ago, but you all know I take too long. Also, I'm posting a new poll on my profile page about which of my characters do you like the best. This will have no impact on the story, I just want to see who you like the best. And finally, I wrote Kathia's part in chapter 24, which I forgot to do. Anyway, happy holidays guys!


	28. The Plans for Today

**Chapter 27: The Plans for Today**

The next morning, the camp was up for breakfast of cooked eggs and sausages. Kathia, Jason, and Roderick all got their foods &amp; drinks and went over to the manager's tent to discuss today's agenda. Sitting at the table, the camp manager said, **"You know, if we're ever going to be build a city here, we're going to need some materials to construct buildings, wires for electricity, and pipes for water. But they need to be really GOOD materials so that our new home doesn't burn down like Cypress, or Windfall as they call it nowadays, did. Any ideas, folks?"** He looked from Jason to Kathia, hoping they would have some useful knowledge to help with this.

**"Yeah, I got some,"** the black man said. **"We should go with stones like bricks and concrete, since they never burn down." **Kathia, who knew about that from her father's business, nodded in agreement at the camp manager.

But Roderick looked skeptical at this suggestion and questioned, **"That may be true, but then how do buildings fall apart when there's a fire?"**

Now it was the girl's turn to bring up her idea. She started off by answering his concern, **"Oh that can be explained. You see? Most buildings tend to have wooden beams supporting them. As you know, wood as you know tends to be vulnerable to fire. So when a fire happens, they burn down and that's when things like roofs and upper floors start to fall apart."**

The camp manager looked surprised with an O-shaped open mouth and said, **"Ah, so that's how it happens. I never knew that..."** But now he was concerned about that fact as he asked, "**But if wood burns easily, then it's obvious we can't use them for beams. Do you know what we can use instead of that?"**

**"Of course!"** Kathia chirped with a brief nod. With her finger slashing across the air, she explained, **"We use steel beams. because they're a fire-resistant metal. Well they're not one hundred percent effective, but they sure last a lot longer than wood."** After putting her left hand down on the table, she continued, **"We can even make them stronger by wrapping insulators around the beams."** Then she made a small frown and reasoned, **"But unfortunately, these things together and much more expensive than wood. And if we're going to make all of our buildings to the most fireproof form, we're going to need some funds. I may be rich, but money doesn't grow on trees."**

Roderick proposed an idea, **"Well if we need money, then I suggest we build up a business in Windfall so that we can get all the cash we need to build Sundown."**

Kathia was cool with the idea, but Jason however was quick to oppose it as he argued, **"I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you on that, Roderick. Because any bills you pay to keep your business going will be pouring right into the dragon's economy and we can't be supporting that, if we're going to be an anti-dragon community."**

The camp manager reasoned, **"I understand your reasons, Jason. But it's the only risk we're going to have to take right now, because everybody's hoard of money is back at the bank, unless they got cremated, so it's likely all of us don't have enough funds to pay."** Then he seemed to have read the black man's mind as he raised up a finger to gesture Jason into silenced. He informed, **"Before you suggest we go out there and raid materials from the other cities, let me remind you that you haven't trained anybody yet to combat dragons. And I'm sure two people doing it alone would be way too risky."** He was obviously hinting about the archer and mage girl pair.

The girl knew that the fat man was right as she said to her friend, **"I agree with him, Jason, because this is the best way to do this now."** Then she smiled optimistically and continued, **"Plus I get to bring my daddy's company, Rittevon Construction Company, back in business with the profits we get. They'll be the ones building this city with the supplies and manpower they have, with a little help of the magic spells I teach them, of course." **

Roderick raised an eyebrow about Kathia's company suspiciously and asked, **"Wait, how did your dad's company go out of business?"**

The girl didn't need to say a word as Jason beat her first. **"The Aquarians and all them other dragons took over all the city's construction job. That's why all the construction companies are out of the job,"** he explained.

The camp manager got mad and ranted, **"Well what a bunch of arrogant assholes."** He looked to the girl and said, **"Sorry to hear about your company, lady."**

Kathia said with her teeth clenched and eyebrows furrowed, **"Oh no, it's not you who should be sorry. It's those scalies who should be for disgracing my dad's death like that."** Then she composed herself and said, **"But anyway, enough of that touchy subject. Now I want to talk about our building priorities. I think we should have the company's newest HQ built here first, so that my daddy's company can be here at home, where they can keep on building without having to run back to Windfall and back here."** She planned to have the higher-ups sell the building in Windfall after after this, so that they can have the funds to build more. **"Once that's done, we then build a safety shelter so that in case of a dragon attack, we can have a place for our citizens to be safe."**

Roderick, who seemed to have gotten an idea of where this was going, added, **"And after that, we move on to building homes, hospitals, schools, and everything else to form a city."**

The girl grinned at him and chirped, **"Yeah, that's how we get this done! And when we have start our own businesses, we won't even need one in Windfall anymore."** She looked over to Jason and asked, **"So do you understand all that now, Jason?"**

The black man had his hand holding his head over the table as he replied, **"Yeah, I do. But now I want to talk about my idea."** After taking his elbow off the table and holding two hands over the table, he suggested, **"When our soldiers are fully trained, we'll be sending them out to fetch money and material from the other cities as well as finding other refugee camp to immigrate people into Sundown. When these people want to start their businesses, we'll bring in supplies for them to sell and start our own economy. If we find a surviving city, we'll trade with them to get more funds we need. And even better, we get to close down shop in Windfall, so that we don't ever feed those scalies again."**

Roderick smiled at Jason and pointed at him, **"I like the way you think, buddy. Both you and that Kathia girl here! So all this will be how we'll build Sundown, right?"**

Jason nodded and answered, **"Yes man!"**

**"Well good, now we can move on to scheduling our training programs,"** the camp manager said. He took up a clipboard with a few sheets of notebook paper on it off the floor. Holding as he was ready to read what was written on the first page, Roderick asked, **"Okay, I've thought about when our folks should learn archery and magic last night and I've got written it down. On mornings, Kathia, you will be teaching magic from eight-thirty to eleven-thirty. Then we will have lunch until twelve-thirty. After that, Jason will start teaching everyone how to shoot until four o' clock."** Holding the clipboard down a bit, he asked the two, **"Are you two okay with that?"**

The archer gave a brief nod and said, **"Uh-huh!"**

Kathia liked it as well as she answered, **"Yes!"**

Roderick grinned and said, **"Great! I'll go tell the whole camp about this and invite everyone to sign-up for these classes, so that we can get started."**

As the camp manager got out of his seat with the pen in hand, Kathia had some plans today that would conflict with the schedule. **"Actually Roderick, I got some things that I need to do today like buying new spellbooks,"** she told him. **"So can Jason and I switch our schedule for today? That way, I'll have a lot of time to decide which spells need to be taught first and get more spells to teach."** And also, that way she'll have more time to practice the spells she already knew.

Roderick agreed to do it, **"Well I see no harm in doing so. So yes, we can make that exception."**

Jason was also happy with the decision. **"Great! It looks like I get to start my class early. Can't wait to show everybody a thing or two,"** he beamed and grinned.

**"Oh ho ho ho!"** the camp manager laughed heartily. **"Someone's eager to teach. Don't worry, Jason. We'll have this school of yours going as soon as eight-thirty comes."**

**"Got it!"** the archer said. Then he looked to Kathia and told her, **"Hey Kathia, don't forget to buy us some bows and arrows. I know I can teach people how to make them, but I know it'll save my class some teaching time if we got the ones already made."**

The girl figured that he meant people practicing with the purchased supplies would be more efficient than people passing Jason's bow to give each other a chance at shooting. **"Sure thing, Jason!"** she replied. Then Kathia got of her seat and headed out the tent. She looked back to the camp manager and asked, **"Hey Roderick, is there anybody who can drive me to Windfall? I'd like to get there faster than riding on my horse."**

Roderick answered, **"Sure, I know a nice lady named Megan. Dark brown hair, green eyes, slim, curvy, and that fine nose. She'll be happy to take you over there. Tell her good ol' Roderick sent you, alright?"**

**"Sure thing,"** Kathia replied. Then she went to go look for the woman fitting the description the man gave her. She found the woman next to a light brown car. Going up to her, Kathia asked, **"Excuse me, are you Megan?"**

The woman turned to her and answered, **"Yes, I am. Do you need something?"**

**"Yes, I do,"** the girl replied. **"I need a ride over to Windfall to pick up some spellbooks and bows. Good ol' Roderick sent me over to find you, since he knows you're a nice lady."**

Megan chuckled and said, **"Oh that Roderick knows me so well. Sure, I can take you over there. But we can't take the car inside Windfall, since they banned vehicles."**

Kathia rolled her eyes at the ridiculous law and said, **"Yeah, yeah, I know about that stupid law."** It's going suck for her since she also won't have her horse to ride around at that time. Hopefully, there will be horse carriage that she can pay to get around the city there. **"So anyway, let's get going,"** she said. The two got into the car and drove into the woods to get to Windfall. On the way, Kathia took out her cellphone and called her maid, **"Hello, Mrs. Merryweather, I'm coming back to the house to get my daddy's address book. I need to call his executives to help build a new city we're going to call Sundown."**

* * *

Minerva woke up and got changed into her casual clothes. Then she brushed her hair to straighten out her bed head. She went over to her laptop to check her email for anything new; nothing. So she went to a search engine and looked up volunteer jobs in Windfall to see if they was anything Ronan can do and would learn from. She clicked on the first link to a website and clicked on the black words "Find an Opportunity" that was sitting on the blue bar. It took her to a different page that listed all the jobs by different organizations. There was a youth basketball couch job, but she thought that Ronan might not be a sports athlete. There was another one for social media/market intern, which seems like a good choice. The other she felt were likely were fundraising intern, office management intern, court-ordered community service, foster grandparent mentor, an invasive weed killer job, food pantry team member, and... Something had caught her eye in surprise.

What this? Could it be? There was a literacy education program for dragons and it was by her workplace organization, the ADR. It was quite amazing to see something like this on an volunteer website. Usually they wouldn't allow something like this to be put on the volunteer list because the populace and government felt that there was no need for dragon rights. But since the Windfall government had given civil rights to dragons, now jobs like the one ADR put would allowed on the volunteer website. Seeing how this job would allow Ronan to work under the same company as her, Minerva went over to the man's room to see if he was awake so that she could tell him about it.

Interestingly, the room was empty and the window was open. For only a short moment, Minerva thought that he might have opened the window to get some fresh air and then head on downstairs. But then she heard noises outside and Drake sounded like he was training Ronan. The woman went over to the window and looked out to see the man practicing his swordplay with Drake giving him tips. **"Mind your footwork Ronan, you keep letting your back heel come up,"** said the dragon, who was off to the side observing his partner. The man's sword skill was so fluid ,it was like it wasn't a separate object; it was part of him. Minerva stood and watched him practice. She would tell him about the opportunity job later after he was done.

* * *

Atlas and her nieces woke up when the morning light shined in their eyes. The magi looked down at her nieces with a smile and said, **"****Good morning, girls!"**

**"****Morning, Aunt Atwas,"** they both said, smiling back.

The rest of the horde woke up with some dragons going out to get some food. The first thing Aeolus did was contact the the horde leader from the cave that the Vulture Horde stayed two days ago. _'Hello again, this is Aeolus of the Vulture Horde and I have some good news to tell you.'_

The cave leader sounded hopeful as he asked, _'Is it about the army? Are they dead?'_

_'As a matter-of-fact, they are,'_ the disaster dragon confirmed. _'My horde destroyed them last night with the help of our new recruits. The dragons in your area are now safe once again.'_

_'For real?'_ the cave leader asked.

_'Yes,'_ Aeolus told him. _'If you were to ask Orion the same question, he'll even confirm it to you.'_

The cave leader beamed, _'Well that's wonderful! I can't wait to tell everyone the good news! I can imagine everyone rejoicing to the news. Thank you so much for saving our community. You will have our gratitude!'_

_'Anytime, sir! The Vulture Horde is always ready to fight for the safety of our race,'_ said the disaster dragon. Then he went over to Sargoth, the dragon whose powers had helped to ensure that all the dragon slayers were killed. The disaster dragon went in front of the red dragon to tell him about today's next mission. **"****Sargoth, your powers were very much helpful last night. I would like for you to use them again when we deal with a vicious tyrant named Dracul. Tell me, has my cousin Bam ever told you about him?"** he asked.

Sargoth recited carefully, **"Only that he is a dragon lord named Dracul. He had tricked you to go after someone named Axle so that he can get rid of him and take over Shadow Wind. He even had a human try to kill my your friend and her family."**

**"So you're caught up. Very good,"** said Aeolus, who nodded as he was glad that he won't have to explain the whole story. Then he went on to explain the plan, **"So anyway, when we go to confront Dracul in the future and capture him, I'm going to need you to use your powers to trap him. Your vines and earth magic would be great for trapping his limbs and encasing them, so that he won't move much when we go to subdue him."** Then he brought up another important part of the plan, **"But before we go after him, we'll need some kind of prison first and a way to keep his magic from working. Either Dracul or his partner, Arch, has the ability to teleport and we can't have him escaping like that. I would have Pyro the cassare dragonet guard him at all times. But if Dracul were to have an army of his fighting us and many of them are magic-users, then we'll need more of Pyro's kind to suppress them in places he's not in. So now I bring up this question. Do you know any cassares we can recruit?"**

Sargoth seemed to be thinking for a moment before he answered, **"There's a secluded island North of here. There's a cassare village there. They don't like visitors, but if they see a problem is dangerous, they will send some of their people. Like I said they don't like visitors. I accidentally teleported there once and had to go through three hours of questioning before they deemed me safe."**

Aeolus frowned and said, **"Sounds like recruiting them for our cause will be difficult. I can't imagine that they would help another city in trouble, after hearing how they're distrusting of outsiders."** He started to ponder his thoughts about the cassare village, _'A village that doesn't trust other dragons. I wonder what terrible event happened that would make the cassares close their doors to fellow dragons.'_ It was sad to hear how this much mistrust the cassares had on other dragons, when it should have gone to everyone's common enemy, the humans.

Axle brought the deer and pig over to the Firestars for breakfast. **"Here Atlas,"** he said as he placed the prey down next to her. The white dragon had sounded a bit sorry in his tone for some reason.

**"Uh thanks,"** the magi said, feeling strange out. Danielle went to eat the pig at its underbelly, but Atlas didn't touch her food as she just watched Axle fly back to his family. _'What's up with him?'_ she wondered in concern. As his family ate in silence, the magi turned back to the food and noticed how Kylie didn't have anything to eat. Axle must have thought that the balloon hatchling was a carnivore by mistake. Getting up, Atlas said to her niece, **"Be right back, Kylie. I'll see if there's any fruits around for you."** She went over to the woods and found some sweet granadilla trees not too far away from the lake. The herbivorous members of the horde were picking the ripe, round yellow-orange fruits off the trees and eating them. Atlas went around these dragons until she found a empty spot where she could get the fruits. The magi picked off a few fruits and teleported back to her nieces with the sweet granadillas laying between her forelegs. **"Here you go, Kylie!"** she said.

**"Thanks, Aunt Atwas!"** the balloon hatchling said happily. She picked up the granadillas and started eating them. Atlas laid down on her underbelly and went on to eat her deer.

As Atlas continued to eat, she noticed movement to the side of her view. She saw Axle and Juna were in their shape-shifted forms, with their skin tone and eyes matching that of their dragon forms, talking to each other at first until it escalated into a fight. Juna seemed to have gotten pissed off at something her brother said. She punched her brother straight in his chest as he staggered back. The halfling said something harsh that seemed to have angered Axle, because he returned the favor right back. The horde watched the scene with worry as the magi became alert as she pushed her upperbody up with her forelegs. The sisters saw their aunt's reaction before they started looking at what everyone was seeing. The fight was soon over, just minutes after it started. Atlas was shocked to see that both siblings were bloodied from the fight. Her dismay worsened when Juna pinned her brother's arm behind his back and push hard until it broke the bone, producing a loud snap. Axle seemed to have bit back his pained scream before he fell on his knees and wept. Seeing how the man was hurt, the Firestars got scared and as Atlas shouted, **"Axle!"** She got up and ran over to the wounded man after Juna had flown away. **"Axle, what happened? Are you alright?!"** she asked. Aeolus had seen the whole thing and sighed in displeasure. He would have called Hewey to heal him, if Axle didn't have the healing ability himself.

Without looking at her, the man answered, **"It's nothing, just..."** He grabbed his arm and healed it with magic. He flexed his hand as if he was testing to see if the pain was still there before he stood up. He looked off to the side before turning his attention back to the magi and reassured, **"Atlas, it truly is nothing. This kind of things happen on a regular basics." **

**"That a bit of an understatement,"** Mekarth said as he sat down next to the dragoness. **"Though yes, breaking your arm was a bit over doing it. You did, however, had it coming,"** he said as Axle shook his head.

The man said, **"It would not be the first time she broke a bone in my body, nor the last."** Then he changes to his dragon form and took to the air up to Juna, who was circling in the sky.

**"What?"** Atlas asked bewildered as to how the dragon lord can take it as normal.

Mekarth looked to Atlas and said, **"Let them do whatever they will do, Atlas. They are siblings and yes, they may attack one another on a daily basic, much more often than a normal family, but they do care for each other."** He explained what he meant, **"Let me put it this way. They both protect one another and want to see that the other can protects themselves, but to do that, they first must see how they fair in a fight. This certain fight though is over a completely different topic. Do to my limitation, I have to hear everything though my ears, so even I do not know what's going on."**

Atlas looked to the brother and sister, who both seemed to have calmed down. Now the magi was even more curious about the fight. Since she suspect Axle wouldn't give her an answer about it, perhaps Juna will. The magi telepathically asked the halfling girl, _'Hey Juna, what was all that brawling about?'_

Axle and Juna still chatted a bit, until she stopped for a brief second, which made the white dragon look at her curious at her sudden pause. She told her brother that Atlas just telepathically asked her about the fight, because now Axle was looking up at the magi. He said something and got a reply, then Juna turn around and walked back to Atlas with her brother close behind her, until they got all the way back to the magi. **"So, you want to know what that fight was about,"** the halfling said as she got close to Atlas. **"It was about you and your family. Now if you excuse me Miss Firestar, I am going to ask your friend over there, a question,"** she said as she pointed over to Aeolus. **"I will not lie; there was more to the fight than you and your family, but mostly it was about you."**

Atlas blinked as she watched the halfling walk around her and head straight for the horde leader. The dragoness knew that Juna was upset about her bringing her nieces into danger, and she probably must have told Axle not to trust her, too. _'Great, I guess Aeolus isn't the only one on her bad side,'_ the magi thought bitterly. Given everything she's seen of Juna, it felt like Atlas met a more spiteful version of Yukki.

Mekarth seemed to be shocked at the answer. **"That's um, un-expected,"** he said, a bit puzzled.

* * *

Aeolus saw Juna walking past the horde members until she came towards him and stopped at the side. **"Next time, clean up your mess. You know exactly what I am talking about, 'Dragon',"** she harshly said at the word Dragon, even more in a disrespectful tone.

The horde leader scowled at the halfling and retorted in a calm tone gradually turning into disrespect at the end, **"Oh so you know about the horde's mission. Well please do tell me how I can "clean up my mess", halfling!"** Aeolus had no tolerance for rudeness towards him; if she wanted to be rude to him, then she should expect no deference from him. **"Oh and by way, has Lord Dracul removed you from your dragon lord title as well?"** he asked, planning on bringing up his noble status next to inform her of her place.

The halfling did not look at him and replied back, **"I care not for this land; only my family and my home. Do what you wish here, but ever let me catch you trying to hurt my homeland or her people, and I will personally ring your neck and make sure you never see the sky again."** Then she walked away from him.

Aeolus watched Juna go and thought, _'So she's not going to bother with our affairs in Solomos. I guess I won't have to do anything to her... for now.'_

* * *

**Author's Note:**So in chapter 24, I forgot to put that small mention with Kathia telling her maid that she was going to stay over at the camp tonight. It's there now. Also, I'm planning on making my first fictional character x reader in the future and it'll feature Wonder Red from The Wonderful 101. The best part; it's a lemon fic.

Next thing I'm going to tell you is that I've been working on chapter 4 of my Megaman ZX fanfic as I should have been all this time, but it's not even halfway done yet. I've only gotten to the part where Dawn finds the second Guardian member at a restaurant. There will be a new character in that chapter too and he's got a biometal of another familiar character from the classic series of Megaman.

Megan (c) me


	29. The Cassare Clan

**Chapter 28: The Cassare Clan**

After Ronan finished up his practice for the morning, he made his way inside the house. Minerva left the guestroom to go meet him. She saw him coming up the stairs sooner than she expected. Smiling, the woman said to him, **"Ronan, I browsing up some volunteer jobs for you and I found some which I think would be interesting to you. One of them is from the ADR and it needs some volunteer mentors who can teach dragons and halflings how to read. What do you say, would you be interested?"**

The man smirked and replied, **"Actually I thought of something of my own."**

**"Hmm? You do?"** asked Minerva, wondering what it is.

He slid past her and went to the guest room. Then he told her, **"I have skills few people have... and with the way this town is... the people can't always rely on the police or any kind of authority to protect them all day and night from harm. I can give them a way to fix this. I'm going to teach every combat style I've learned, but to do so... I have to open up a school."** The woman smiled and became intrigued with his objective. The man gave a small grin to her after he got himself dressed. **"I can't live forever, and the variety in skills I have... people can learn them individually and master them separately, but to be a professional in them all is even better. Can you help me to set up a school?"** he asked.

Minerva was glad to help out, so she answered, **"Of course, I will! It'll be good for everyone if they learned how to defend themselves. I'm glad you figured out what you're going to do next, Ronan. That idea of yours sounds great!"**

Ronan smiled and beamed, **"Fantastic! First step is to find a good location. It can't be a small place cause there'd be no room. It must be big."** He got his robes, leather, and weapons all strapped on. **"I'll be in town today, if you need me just hop onto Drake and he'll find me,"** he told her.

The woman nodded and replied, **"Okay Ronan, take care! I'll be looking up business locations online to see where we can set up shop."** He smirked at her and pulled his hood on before he ran out the front door. Then she went to her laptop and opened up the internet browser. She used the search engine in the toolbar to get a list of websites having lists of building locations with no businesses set. She clicked on the first link and opened up a page with pictures of buildings, but they were all those in Cypress's days before the reconstruction into Windfall. So this website was no use. Minerva went on to another website, but it was just the same as the first one; no updated pictures. She clicked on the back button and clicked on the third link. This time, there were a few updated pictures. Smiling, she thought to herself, _'Oh goodie!'_ She checked out each link of the buildings and looked to see how much each cost, what set them apart, and if they were good enough to set up business.

* * *

Axle just sat there for a few moments before he spoke to the magi with a bit of shyness, **"Atlas, about Juna, she may seem hostile to almost everyone she comes across, but that's because she is a protector spirit. She hates seeing people risk other lives for their own goals. Give it some time to know her, you might like her."**

The magi looked down at the ground in self-blame and sighed, **"Looks like Aeolus isn't the only one who's upset with me bringing my nieces into this. I thought I could do this because I was so confident of skill and power as the dragon champion. I felt like I could take on the whole world while keeping Danielle and Kylie safe."** Then she remembered her fight with Spinx and continued, **"But seeing how Spinx shrunk down that area trap spell around me after our fight, I wondered if I could ever survive like this, if our battle continued with no room left for me to dodge..."** Then after brief thought at how to get around Spinx's seal spell, she looked back at Axle and continued to say, **"Well I could always use my earth and ice walls to shield myself."**

The white dragon explained to her, **"The spell you are talking about; only two dragons know it. It's called Seal. It creates a raw energy barrier that is almost impossible to break though, except it not unbreakable. There's only one way to break the barrier."** He looked down to the ground now and continued, **"The spell was created by Trok as a way to stop the outside world from getting into the city. It required two dragons of the same blood line to create a barrier of that size around the city, or Trok would have not been able to hunt or even live longer than a year because of the demand of Seal, which put a huge strange on the caster body."** Then his voice started to get depressing and almost turned into a scared whisper, **"The other dragon that helped with this was Trok's son, Drago."** He sounded scared as if dragon lord's son was bad omen.

Atlas looked at Axle curiously in concern and wondered, _'What's up with him? Who is this Drago and why's he scaring him?'_

Axle seemed to have pushed his fear behind as he went back to speaking calmly as he looked over the magi a bit, **"To break the seal, you must reverse the flow of energy of the barrier. A simple counter wind or a wall of ice moving in the opposite direction could make the barrier weaker, even running or spinning will work. But that would not be enough to break it. You must keep the opposite flow going, even if the seal's direction switched, and then find the weaken rune and break it. This will permanently weaken the spell, unless it is dis-spell by the caster and recast again. This will allow you to continue to weaken the barrier with a simple spell or even physical attacks against the other runes or the wall, cracking it. At that point, you must put all your weight and even strength into it in hope of breaking though the barrier."**

Atlas replied, **"Huh, so that's how it works."** With all that info in mind, the magi felt a bit confident that she would have an easier time defeating Spinx.

Then the white dragon sounded a bit nervous, while trying to remain calm, **"Atlas, you might be able to. There is a chance you might not be able to as well."** He quickly changed the subject and said, **"And about room for dodging Spinx's attacks. A bigger target is easier to hit, whereas a smaller target is harder to hit. So if you want, I could try and help you train in the human form so it's easier for you to use."**

Atlas thought that would be a good idea in case of an emergency. She flashed an eager grin and said, **"You know what? That sounds like a great idea! Let's go do it right now."** Without waiting for a response, she transformed into her human form.

Axle changed to his human form as he started to walk around the woman, almost as if looking over her work of the spell, but this time slowly and muttering somethings to himself as he came back in front of her. Nothing happened for a few seconds until Mekarth and the now calm Juna came over to them. Atlas figured that the man must have called them over with his telepathy. Axle spoke to his brother, **"Mekarth, I need your help training Atlas on her human form."** They gathered close together as they chatted amongst themselves. Atlas raised a brow, wondering what they were saying. Though, she kind of knew that they were discussing how to train her. Once they were done, all three of them broke away from each other as both Axle and Juna took to the air in their dragon forms.

The black dragon came up to Atlas and laid his head down close to her. He spoke softly, **"We have agreed on a training style for you. I will explain the rules of this training. First, you must try to remain on me as long as you can with them trying to get you off. You are allowed your magic minus your shapeshifting magic. So if you change to your dragon form or even a halfling form, your training will stop. Just remain in your human form as long as you can keep it going. Finally, I'm under your protection as of right now until this training is done, so that means you will be looking out for not just yourself but also me as well. I have no magic or any fancy abilities, but I have my own tricks. Also no outside help. The only help you will get is from me. And one Last thing, you have to be riding standing on my back."** He bent down to let the woman get on him. Atlas walked carefully and slowly over to Mekarth; she still wasn't used to walking as a human. Then she climbed onto his back and stood on him. She imagined this kind of training was going to be tough as there was a high chance of her getting knocked either by Axle or Juna, or by Mekarth's flight if her feet can't hold on to him.

Then Atlas got telepathic calls from the siblings; the first one from Juna said, _'I really hope Axle right about you, Atlas. If not, well you can guess what might happen.'_

The woman replied, _'Oh yeah, I already imagined that.'_

The next one from Axle said, _'Take this easy and slow, OK? Worry more about yourself and your own abilities and keep an eye out for Juna. She's still a bit mad and you can thank your friend for that one.'_

_'Huh, I guess she can't forgive Aeolus for what his horde did you.__Can't say I blame her though,'_ the woman replied. She'd be very angry too if someone worked together with a bad guy to hurt her nieces. Well maybe it was either that or Juna still thinks the horde leader wants to kill all humans. _'So when do we start, Axle?'_ she asked. No response came from the dragon lord, no matter how many times Atlas tried to contact him.

Mekarth spoke to her, **"This is not going to be easy, so I suggest you try and move your footing with the flow of my body. It won't be easy I will admit, even Axle had the hardest time trying to stay on as well when he was try to do this training. Come to think of it, it was him who made up this crazy training in the first place."**

Atlas frowned and asked, **"What the hell? And he's going to use this kind of training on me, a beginner? What's the benefit in that?"** And most importantly, how long did it take for him to master that? If Atlas and company were going to warp back to Rudvich to get to Trident Mountain today, a training method that takes a long time to master may not be useful at all if they were to encounter Spinx again.

The dragon answered, **"He said you would ask that, and the answer to that is Acrobatics, also reaction time. He also said and I will quote, "That she needs to be challenged. She need to be push to her limits."**He got up and continued, **"I really don't know why he putting a hard training style on you so early, and I'm not going to argue it at all. If you want to know take it up with him afterwards. He haves his reasons."**

**"Alright, I'll see what's up with that later,"** said the woman.

As if making sure that her position was correct, Mekarth told her, **"Move your right foot a bit forward and your left foot a bit more to the right, keep your footing closer together but not too close and not too far either, or you will fall off." **Atlas did as she was told while watching her feet carefully so as to get it right until they were in the correct place. Then he spread out his wings as he ready himself to go into the air. The woman braced herself by pressing her feet down as hard as she can, hoping that this would help to keep her on him. With a few powerful thrust of his wings he was off the ground. As he was going in a straight line up, Atlas felt like she was going to fall off to the side, but with luck she managed to keep her balance. His climb was smooth, but swift at the same time as he climbed even higher. **"Whenever you're ready, Atlas, just tell me and we will start heading the way where Axle and Juna went."**

The woman replied with a strong determination, **"Oh I'm ready for this, alright. I'm going to do whatever it takes to learn from all this, if I want to beat Spinx."** The dragon flew to where his siblings were at a speed not too slow, but not too fast either to knock Atlas off his back.

* * *

Aeolus looked to Pyro, thinking that he might know others of his breed who would be much more co-operative than the cassare village that Sargoth spoke of. The horde leader sent a telepathic message to him, _'Pyro, do you have a minute here?'_

The cassare responded, _'Okay, I'll be right there.' _The disaster dragon waited for Pyro until he saw him flying his way over to him. The cassare landed, sending a cloud of dust in the air. **"You wanted to see me?"** he asked.

Aeolus explained, **"Yes, I needed your help on finding more brute dragons and cassares like yourself. You see, I plan to take our horde to Shadow Wind and subdue Dracul in case of a fight, so that we can get the truth out of him on who he really is. The reason why one cassare and two brutes alone won't do it, is because Lord Dracul's bound to have lots of soldiers under his command. We'll need as many anti-magic dragons to fight off whatever magical forces Shadow Wind has."** Not only that, but the horde was also comprised of mostly pygmy dragons with a ratio of 56 to 39. The horde leader needed bigger dragons to balance out the numbers. **"Since you are a cassare yourself, you're bound to have kin of the same breed as you. Which now to brings me to the question. Do you know any others of those breeds I'm looking for?"** he asked.

Pyro answered a bit nervously, **"Well... Yes. My clan lives a little farther west, but I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to go talk to them. They... don't trust outsiders."**

**"Hmm, that could be a problem,"** said the disaster dragon with a frown. It sounds like Pyro's clan were just as confiding as the cassare village. Aeolus wondered how he was going to earn the hearts and minds of dragons such as these and motivate them into helping the his causes. He thought inquiring from Pyro for about his clan, so that they could ideas on recruiting them, but first he need to know everything about the clan so that he can understand them. **"Did anything happen to make them suspicious of outsiders?"** he asked.

The cassare explained, **"Well, cassares are usually hunted by humans because of our abilities, which would explain why we're so weary of them. But dragons choose to avoid us, so we don't really have good relationships outside of our clans. I guess we're just used to being left alone. Besides, we're pretty territorial."**

Aeolus briefly shook his head as he said, **"Shelter out those who shelter out you. Now I understand why the cassares choose to be isolationists. Thank you for sharing that information with me, Pyro. Now I can start working on ideas on how to gain their trust. And it would even be better if you helped me out as well since you know your family a lot more than I."**

Pyro shifted uncomfortably. **"Well, my clan is rather arrogant and very defensive. They are also pretty hot-headed and will take the smallest comment as a challenge. But they have a deep hatred for humans, so they will probably be quick to joining the hoard,"** he shrugged.

The disaster dragon picked up Eitri's magic stone and said, **"Hmm... this may be a bit easier than I thought. Very well then, I suppose it's time we made our way over to meet them. I'll use this magic crystal to warp us to your clan's place. But first, you must give me the mental image of where they live at."**

The cassare nodded and answered, **"Not too far away, a few miles South from here. They live in a series of caves on the side of a cliff."** He sent him a mental image of the steep rock face, dotted with dozens of caverns. **"But if you're going to meet my kin, don't take me with you. We don't exactly see eye to eye…"** he requested, looking down at his claws.

Aeolus understood his soldier's nervousness and said, **"Very well, I'll go alone. But do be prepared to face them should I ever return with the clan."** This fair warning would give the cassare time think on how to deal with any possible stress he'll get from his family. Picturing the clan's home in his mind, Aeolus used Eitri's stone to warp him over to the place. There was a bright flash and the horde leader was gone with purple clouds left behind in his place before they quickly disappeared.

* * *

As Mekarth flew on, Atlas noticed that her being on the dragon's back was like a human riding on one, although it wasn't like how humans really do it. _'Well doesn't this feel kind of crazy; a full-grown dragon riding on another dragon's back. I must fit in with the hatchlings and pygmies that do ride,'_ she thought. Pretty soon, she saw Axle and Juna in sight. Calling out to them, Atlas shouted, **"Hey Axle, we're ready for ya!"**

The man walked up the silver dragoness's back and started to walk closer to her head. **"Okay then, Atlas. Your time starts-"** Axle started to yell back as he jumped off the right side of Juna. **"Now!"** The man fell, but his sister on the other hand climbed higher into the sky, right into the light of the sun. Axle took on his dragon form and changed course to fly under Mekarth, who started to growl.

Atlas saw the two siblings coming at her. Her first instinct told her to cast fireballs at them, which she did by channeling fire magic energy into her arms and then force them through her hands. The hands became heated and fireballs were cast at the dragons. But these fireballs were much smaller than the ones she normally cast as a dragoness. In fact, they were the size of basketballs. Axle dodged the spell as he continued his speedy approach until he came up close enough and came to a dead stop. He forced the air current he had tailing behind him to blow ahead of him in a heavy breeze straight for Atlas. The woman squeezed her eyes shut and clutched her arms to her chest as she held herself against the wind. Once the breeze stopped, the woman opened her eyes again and saw Juna bursting out of the black smoke with a burn mark on her right wing. She went straight for Mekarth from the angle and speed she was going at, trying to crash into him. Mekarth was not moving as he simple said, **"Remember what I said at the beginning. Time for you to act on it."**

Charging magic energy to her hands, Atlas yelled, **"Oh no, you don't!"** Then she yelled as she cast two fireballs at the silver dragoness.

* * *

The flash appeared in front of the steep rock face with Aeolus hovering in the air. He looked from left to right at the row of the caves and thought, _'Okay, now I'm in their territory. But which of these caves has their leader?'_ He knew it would be better to speak to the leader as if he can convinced him or her, then the whole clan will be willing to join the horde. Aeolus landed at the cliff and looked inside one of the caves to see if anyone was inside, but no one was there, not even an egg. He turned his head away from the cave and spotted a large cassare with multiple scars across his body standing at the edge of the very top of the cliff. Apparently, he must have just left his cave. The disaster dragon walked along the cliff until he was behind him. **"Greetings, fellow dragon,"** he said politely.

The cassare turned to him with his teeth bared in a growl and asked, **"Who are you? Why are you on my territory?"**

The horde leader answered, **"I'm sorry if I trespassed onto your territory uninvited, but I'm looking for the leader of this clan. An associate of mine heard about the cassare clan here and told me how you all hated humans like we do. I'm Aeolus, the leader of the Vulture Horde who's dedicated to wiping out humanity at a global scale and one of the five dragons who worked together to invent the Spell and pass it to everyone end slavery forever."**

Then Aeolus heard a voice behind him saying, **"I am sorry, but do you mind another cassare? I would love to help you in whatever anti-human schemes you plan."**

Aeolus turned his attention to a larger cassare, twice his size, and asked, **"And you are?"** He noticed that this cassare's scale color was orange like a magi dragon's. Then he saw a stone fall on the side of the cassare's head with a clunk, after which he saw the scales glow. The disaster dragon though, _'He appears to be part magi; he might have some magical abilities he could provide. I have to know about his abilities before I bring him into the horde.'_ the disaster dragon thought.

**"My name is Yopple,"** the larger cassare answered. Then he asked again, **"Did I hear something about the Vulture Hoard working against humans? That sounds good to me."**

The disaster dragon answered, **"Yes, you did. My name is Aeolus, the leader of this horde. If you are to join my horde, then I would like to know the name and capable abilities of my potential recruit."**

Yopple told him about himself, **"I used teleportation to get here. I can also use telekinesis. Alas, as to my knowledge, they take lots of energy. I also mastered magics of the elements of Fire and Water. I have an unusual sense of smell and for some reason, my scales glow. Those are my abilities and I may develop more later on. I can also help you to persuade more allies for the Vulture Horde. I might be part Magi; who knows, I never did. My old master kept many secrets from me."**

**"Yes, you're definitely part magi by sound of it,"** said Aeolus. He told Yopple why, **"Most magis have the ability to teleport and that spell came from the pure blood magis and can be passed on to their descendants."** Then suddenly, he felt a bite on his tail, causing the disaster dragon to roar out in pain. He whipped his head around to see who or what had snapped him. Nobody was there, but Aeolus knew he wasn't imagining things. _'Something had bit my tail alright, but who did it?'_ he thought. He was pretty sure the scarred cassare wouldn't do this, so he looked around on the ground for the culprit, but couldn't find anything. Then he heard a snap above and looked at the tree meter away from him to see a broken branch hanging down from its place. Soon after that, Aeolus felt something poke him on the leg and looked down to see what it was; nothing. But he did hear a rustle in a bush, which he looked at right now.

His attention was soon taken by the scarred cassare who roared, **"ENOUGH!" **Aeolus turned his attention to him as the cassare continued, **"You are all trespassers on MY territory and I have the right to know why you are here! That goes for you as well!"** The last statement was addressed to the mysterious newcomer in the trees. He called to someone behind Aeolus and Yopple, **"There's someone up there; stop them."** The disaster dragon watched the female cassare fly over to the tree. Seeing how the scarred male was demanding of his guest and how he ordered his fellow clanmate, the disaster dragon now knew that this cassare was the leader. The clan leader turned back to the two other dragons and demanded, **"Start explaining, and don't try anything funny. Your magic won't work here."** He glared at Yopple.

The horde leader said, **"Right, so as I said. I am the leader of the Vulture Horde and I am in need of cassare recruits. I won't ask of you to bring in the whole clan, since I understand you need some of your members to protect your turf."** Remembering the army and Spinx, he added, **"The reason I need cassares is so that we're likely going to face magic-using humans and halflings in the future. Some of them may be necromancers who have used the dragons they killed as their new slaves."** To be more convincing, Aeolus warned, **"You probably may think that you don't need to join the horde as your clan can nullify the humans' magic and you will always be safe here at home. But you mustn't underestimate humans; their innovative and clever minds can work around their lack of advanced weaponry from the Spell and their lack of magic from your fields. One day, they'll find the best way to kill your whole clan with either a new strategy and/or new weapons."** He had seen humans evolve in their technology and culture throughout his lifetime, so he knew what to expect from them later. **"That is why I need your help. We need to destroy all the humans around the world as soon as possible to protect all dragons, including your own clan."** Hopefully this emotional appeal would work to win the clan leader's support.

Yopple added his explanation, **"Yes, and I came here to join the Vulture Horde. I realize that the Horde is in need of cassares to kill humans, and since I grew up with a human, I know their secrets and how their minds work. The majority of them are stupid but somehow clever as hell. That is why the Horde needs me. Because I know how humans work."** His scales started glowing again. The magi cassare made himself a little taller and continued, **"And with your help, the Vulture Horde will be unstoppable, and humans will get a taste of their own treatment. Fellow cassare, I would love it if you could join the Horde with me and become glorious. Imagine, standing above all those human corpses. Don't you want to see all of them die under your claws?"**

The clan leader looked fascinated by their words, but he was still skeptical. **"Is that so? Well then, where is this Vulture hoard you speak of? And how did you manage to get into my camp unnoticed?"** he asked.

Aeolus answered, **"My horde is back at the lake. I used a magic stone from one of my magis to warp myself here."**

Yopple stared at the scarred cassare and answered, **"How did I get here unnoticed? Well, maybe they thought I was just another cassare? No, probably not. Hard to miss orange scales. Ask your clan why they didn't notice us."**

Salvo glared back at the magi cassare as he explained. **"Most of my clan is out hunting. That's probably why nobody noticed you."** Then Aeolus heard the bush rustle louder this time and saw a dark myst pygmy dragonet fly out of it with the female cassare nearby. The female must had realized nobody was in the tree, so she went to search the ground. The dark myst bit the female's ear, causing the cassare to roar in annoyance and thrashed her tail, attempting to knock the pygmy out of the air. She missed as the small black dragonet flew around into the trees. Then she threw a small stone at the clan leader before hopping away. He dodged and the stone hit the ground with a thud. The female began to chase after the pygmy, but her leader raised his tail to stop her. **"Don't worry. It's not worth our time," **he said. She nodded and flew down to her den.

Looking at the pygmy, Aeolus thought, _'So that's who's been troubling us. What a pesky little hatchling.'_ The disaster dragon thought about dealing with her later, if she didn't leave the clan's home before then.

The dark myst huffed and made a strange chattering sound that was somewhere between a grumble and a chuckle, and then she sighed. **"I'm Baltia," she said. "Dark Myst Pygmy, as you can no doubt tell, and the best aim with a small stone you're likely to see. Or get hit by."** She did a backflip and then landed on the disaster dragon's head, blinking her bright green eyes. **"So, there's a Horde?"** she said with a grin. **"Any chance I could help stir up some trouble? I'm a good distracter."**

Aeolus answered, **"Yes there is, but we only allow those who are interested in ridding the world of ALL the humans in."** She was definitely good at messing with others and look like perfect bait to lure out the guards. But for some reason, she doesn't seem like the type to go around killing "innocent" humans. Aeolus needed to make sure who he was dealing with, because he didn't want another Zeditha who would go desert the horde and warn another human settlement about them.

The clan leader grumbled and said to Baltia, **"If you're looking for trouble, my clan is the wrong place to be."** Then he turned towards the disaster dragon and said, **"As for whether or not I'll join your 'horde', I'll consider it. For now, you can go back to where you came from and wait. If you don't hear from me by night fall, then I'm not coming."**

Aeolus responded, **"Very well, I'll be patiently awaiting your answer. The three of us will take our leave."** Knowing how magic would be ineffective to use in the clan's home, he decided to get Yopple use his spell far from here. **"Yopple, Baltia, let's go,"** he said before flying out of the clan's home and into the sky.

Baltia rolled in the air as she followed the other dragons. **"Dragons, humans, all the same to me. Both have ears to bite; both jump at a pebble to the head!"** she chuckled. **"Dragons have tails to bite as well and that's good, but humans can't fly and they never look up, which can be very amusing. I know I'm a dragon, but which one anyone else is doesn't matter much."** Aeolus frowned; that dark myst was more interested in pranking others than working towards the horde's goal. Plus, he was pretty sure the others wouldn't be happy about having their tails bitten or getting rocks thrown at their heads. She was certainly not fit for the horde. Then she continued, **"I can tell the difference though, obviously. And I'll happily annoy anyone you point me at."** She sped to catch up, then flew happily through the branches, flipping over and under them in a nice game of avoid.

To make sure that this was someone he could trust not to annoy his horde, the disaster dragon asked in suspicion, **"So am I to presume you won't be messing with the members of my horde?"**

**"Well..."** the dark myst began. **"I'll try not to. And I certainly won't annoy anyone while you're attacking a village or anything. After all, if I'm really bored, there are some good branches out there that I can stone or I can fly off and annoy other humans in advance."** She did a few spins in the air, happy that she wouldn't be alone in this stupid forest any more.

Aeolus frowned and shook his head, **"Try doesn't sound like an absolute promise."**

Yopple leaned in towards her and snarled, **"Well listen here, I won't tolerate being in a horde with an annoying pygmy biting on my tail unless you promise to NEVER annoy me or any others of the horde. Got it, shrimp? If you bite my tail or throw a stone at me ONCE, I will report you and have you kicked. Got it? I noticed that stone and I only ignored it because if I reacted, I would look bad. Got it, hatchling?"**

Baltia sighed and spat through her teeth, **"Fine,****_ s_****tones and bites are for humans only."** The horde leader heard her mutter some things under her breath before she cheered up and grinned, **"But attack lots! I could even be a spy, I get anywhere, cause a little trouble, steal some of their weapons and such..."**

Now that's a promise, but she sounded annoyed about that. With more things she said she'll do, Aeolus has gotten ideas of what to teach the pygmy dragons later. Baltia may not be the best pygmy he's looking for, but he'll be willing to give her a chance to see how she performs. **"Alright then, we'll see how you do, Baltia. But if you ever make ONE mistake that ends up costing the horde, you'll be kicked out,"** the disaster dragon said. Then he looked to Yopple and gave him the image of the lake. _'Yopple take us there. We're leaving now,' _he said.

The magi cassare nodded and said, _'Sure thing, sir. One problem; I used my teleportation magic to get here. Now I need extra energy to get us back or I will be out for at least a day. Want me to take the risk?'_

Aeolus was planning on getting his horde trained later and he didn't need Yopple to collapse on him. _'No, I will use the magic stone to warp us instead,'_ he said. Then he pictured the lake in mind and teleported the trio over to the lake.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I looked at SparksflY's character form for Pyro and found out that he was in his teens, so now I've edited a few chapters to fit his age.

Drago (c) lorddraco8967  
Salvo (c) SparksflY  
Baltia (c) Zeditha


	30. Train, Play, and Eat Breakfast

**Chapter 29: Train, Play, and Eat Breakfast**

The battle training had been going on for a while. Atlas cast a few more fireballs at the silver dragoness. Juna's eyes open were wide as the spells hit their mark, creating a black smoggy fog. The sound of shallow beating wings in the fog as it spiraled to the sound of the wings. The smell of scorch flesh filled the air with its horrible smell. When the fog lifted, Juna was in halfling form in a ball form with what left of her silver dress, which was burnt away from the magic. Her legs were curled up against her chest and her arms protect her head and chest the best she could, but they had burn marks over her arms, legs and her wings. Atlas knew that humans loved to wear clothes, but never understood why they felt the need to cover their privates or make their nudity taboo. Dragons and animals were always comfortable without covering themselves up, but humans were an exception. It was even stranger how Juna, who was really a dragon, would need to hide herself like that. She's not even human or halfling, no matter what she looks like, for Pete's sake.

**"Damn. I guess Axle was right about you,"** Juna sounded exhausted and in pain. Her legs fell down from her chest and her arms fell back to her side. She looked over at the white dragon and yelled, **"Axle, I'm done. I conclude that she is worth training, but we are short on time."** She took down to the forest below and was shortly followed by Axle, who transformed into a human on ground.

He said something back up to Mekarth and Atlas, **"Well, I guess that point's been proven. I guess it's time to get started then; for real this time, so you're going to be on solid ground now."**

Atlas raised a brow and asked, **"Wait, that was a test?"**

Mekarth simply grinned a bit at the woman. **"Well there's your answer. He needed the approval of the elder to train an outsider. Sorry about lying to you back there, but we need to see how much you are willing to put into this training, or what you could still learn," **he said as he started a slow decent down. **"It's nothing to do against you, but Shadow Wind lords have their own training styles and require the approval of the eldest in their group to train them. And the fact Juna is a little over 500, so she falls under the eldest of us three, which means we need her approval to teach you."**

The woman said, **"A secret training, huh? No wonder, why what we did looked strange."** Then she thought about the human transformation spell she told Aeolus about and thought, _'So that's why Juna was upset about me telling him. That spell must have been one of those things only the dragon lords can learn.'_ But then she quickly remembered that one must need an approval of the elder first before an outsider can learn. _'No wait, it might not be a secret at all. Otherwise, Axle wouldn't have told me it,'_ she thought. But she still wasn't sure about that as she continued thinking, _'Oh gosh, I'm so confused. I need to ask Mekarth.' _Looking down at the black dragon, she asked, **"Say, about that human transformation spell. Is that another secret that only the dragon lords should know?"**

Mekarth simple laugh a bit, **"No the spell is pretty common and Axle more likely taught it to you to help you protect your family." **The black dragon seemed calmed as he landed on the ground.

**"Oh good, because for a moment, I'd thought I'd-"** Atlas quickly stopped running her mouth before she say anything about being in trouble for telling Aeolus the spell. **"Uh... teach my nieces how to transform."** She wasn't sure if telling Mekarth about the horde leader would garner some trouble, but she decided not to mention him just in case.

Then they saw Axle was healing Juna's wounds. The halfling seemed to have no problem with being nude and Axle seemed to not have a problem with it. **"There you should be fine now,"** Axle calmly said as Juna simple rubber her arm and simple turn to her dragon form and started to leave. She stopped and looked at Mekarth, who let Atlas down from his back. Then the black dragon left with his sister.

* * *

After Bam finished eating his breakfast of fruits and a monkey, the navy blue dragon noticed the Firestar sisters eating their meals. Bam, who was very fond of hatchlings, decided to go over to them and meet them. As soon as he reached them, the sisters looked up at the dragon who smiled gleefully and greeted, **"Hey there, you must be Atlas's girls. I'm Bam, Aeolus's cousin. What are your names?"**

The whiptail hatchling replied, **"I'm Danielle."**

**"And I'm Kywie,"** said the balloon hatchling who spoke after her sister.

Bam complimented, **"Danielle and Kywie, what cute names for cute little hatchlings like you."** The sisters smiled and giggled in response. Then he asked, **"So what's your aunt like? Is she nice and taking good care of you?"**

**"Yep!"** the whiptail hatchling replied. **"She bwings us back food when we're hungwy."**

Kylie added, **"And she keeps us safe fwom bad guys."**

The navy blue was glad that they had a good caretaker and said, **"Ah, she sounds like a good parent you have. Does she play with you, too?"**

Danielle shook her head and answered, **"Nah, not reawwy. She just wets me and Kywie pway togeder."**

**"Oh, okay,"** replied the navy blue. He thought of Atlas with a slight disapproval, _'What a boring dragoness.'_ Although he respected Atlas for feeding and protecting them; he felt that she was flawed for not playing with her nieces. He knew that every hatchling deserved some fun, too. So since the magi never played with the hatchlings, Bam decided he was going to make up for that by interacting with them. **"Hey, want to play a game?"** he asked.

**"Yes!"** both sisters cried in an excited joy.

**"Great!"** Bam exclaimed happily. **"How about we play a game of Tag? You ever played that before?"** he asked.

The sisters shook their heads as they both said simultaneously, **"No."**

Seeing how the hatchlings were new to the game, the navy blue dragon explained the rules of the game, **"Okay, here's how it goes. One of us will be "it" and the it-dragon has to touch the others to make him "it". The ones who aren't "it" have to run away so that they don't become "it". Get it?"**

Danielle and Kylie nodded their heads understandingly and answered, **"Yes!"**

**"Okay then, let's get started,"** Bam replied. He decided to make his move first by selecting one of the sisters to be "it". He touched Danielle on the maw with his toe and declared, **"Tag, you're it!"** Then he and Kylie started to run away as they laughed.

**"Hey, get back here!"** the whiptail squealed. She ran after the two dragons to tag one of them. After Bam and Kylie split up, Danielle went after her sister, since she was slower than the navy blue dragon. Danielle got closer to the balloon hatchling before she pounced on her to the ground. **"Tag, you're it!"** the whiptail exclaimed triumphantly.

Now with Kylie being "it", the balloon hatchling began to chase after her sister and the navy blue dragon. However, since she was running on two legs and they on four legs, the hatchling was too slow to to catch either of them. Kylie started to feel a pang of frustration and felt that this was going to be impossible. Bam saw her clenching frown and decided to go easy on the balloon. He faked his exhaustion and panted, **"Oh no... I'm too tired to run anymore. I sure hope Kylie doesn't tag me."**

Taking advantage of the adult's mercy, Kylie went over to his leg and touched it. **"Tag, you're it!"** she squealed. Then she ran away from the navy blue. Bam went after the sisters, but held his speed back to make it look like they were faster than him and to boost their self-esteem.

* * *

After each careful analysis, Minerva decided to go with the large building that used to be a fitness center. _'That looks like a fine place for a school. I wonder if Ronan agrees with me,'_ she thought. After writing down the page's URL on paper, the woman decided to take a break from searching. She needed to eat some breakfast for energy or she probably wouldn't concentrate much. So she left her room to go downstairs into the kitchen. There, the woman went to the freezer and took out some bacon and a ham. She knew it was courtesy to feed her guests first before herself. The ham was going to be fed to Drake, but since the meat was frosted with ice, Minerva would have to defrost the ice first before warming it up in the oven. So she left the ham on the empty sink under the sun's light that glared through the window. In the meantime, she would have to fix breakfast for Ronan and herself. She turned the dial on the oven and pre-heated it to 350°F. Then she took out the bacon rack from the drawer of the oven and placed it on the counter. Next, she opened the bacon package and took out the strips to put on the rack. After that, she went to get the ingredients ready for pancakes, while she waited for the heat to get to where it's at. She went to the cupboard and took out a box of pancake mix. Then she went to the bottom cupboard and took out a bowl to mix the ingredients in. Afterwards, Minerva went to the drawer next to the bottom cupboard and took out the wire whisk. She placed the three things on the other side of the sink and opened the pancake mix's box and bag to pour the cream-colored flour into the bowl. She went back to the cupboard and took out the measuring cup. After she filled it with water from the sink and pour it into the mix, the oven started beeping to indicate the temperature has reached its designated point. The woman put the measuring cup aside and went to put the bacon rack into the oven to cook.

While the bacon cooked, Minerva mixed the pancake mix until it turned into batter. Then she took out the frying pan from the cupboard and put it on the stove. She took a big metal spoon and poured one scoop of the batter onto the frying pan to bake. She went to get the spatula and a plate to put next to the stove, and waited for the batter to finish its first side. After a while, the woman took the spatula and flipped the pancake to its other side to be just as brown as the first side. Once it was done baking, the woman removed the pancake from the pan and put it on the plate to cool. Then she went to work on the second pancake and then the following others after that. Between working on the pancakes, Minerva checked on the bacon from time to time to see if they were ready yet. After all the foods were baked and cooked, Minerva turned off the oven and took out the bacon rack to place on the stove. Then she grabbed another big plate and put the crisp bacon onto it. With two foods done, the woman went to cook the third and final part of the breakfast meal, turkey sausages. She took them out of the refrigerator and placed them onto the frying pan. After letting them cook, she turned off the stove and put them onto the third big plate. After putting the bacon rack and frying pan into the sink, Minerva grabbed two paper plates and filled them each with two pancakes, three bacon, and two sausages. She put the plates on the table and went to go get the cups to fill them with orange juice. Then after putting the cups on the table, she put a fork and a knife next to each plate. Finally, she took out the pancake syrup and set it onto the middle of the table.

With the breakfast completed, Minerva heard a knock on the door and Ronan called, **"Minerva? It's me, I'm back."**

The woman went to open the door and said, **"Welcome back, Ronan. Did you find the place you were looking for?" **

The man made his way to the guest room to get out of his gear. Then he smirked at her and answered, **"I did. There's an open plot of land a few miles away from here. Big enough that, if you can afford it, we can build a school."**

**"Oh that's good!"** said Minerva, sounding glad for him. Then she suggested, **"Well I don't really have enough money to build it, but we can always get some loans to hire construction workers to build the place."**

Then they went into the dining room where Ronan was surprised to find breakfast made for him. **"Minerva, this is very kind of you, but you didn't have to make breakfast for me,"** he said with a smile.

The woman smiled at him and said, **"But of course I have to do this. You can't start off a day on an empty stomach, can you?"**

Ronan replied gratefully, **"Minerva, I've never had someone treat me so well in a long time. Thank you... for everything."**

The woman felt delighted and said, **"You're welcome, Ronan. You definitely need it after all you went through."** Then suddenly, the telephone started ringing for Minerva to come and pick it up. **"I'll be right back,"** she told the man before she went over to the telephone and answered it. **"Hello?"**

Her boss, Richard, said to her,_"Good morning, Minerva. I have a few tasks for you to do today."_

**"Yes, I'm listening,"** the woman said as she was eager to do what needs to be done.

The executive director told her, _"Okay then. Today, I would like for you to write an article about our dragon literacy program we started today and another on the magic masters teaching magic at the city hall. Be sure to explain how these will help dragons and build a bridge between our species and theirs."_

Minerva went over to the oven to check on the ham as she replied, **"I understand, Mr. Darien, I'll get to it right now."** She opened the oven's door and put on an oven mitt.

The man wasn't done speaking yet as he had more to say, _"Also, when you're done with these articles, feel free to download and print copies of the flyer for our program and post them all over the city. Thank you and have a good day!"_

**"You too, sir,"** Minerva replied as she took out the ham and placed it on the stove. She pushed the hang-up button on the phone and put it on the counter. _'Wow, I sure have a lot to do today,'_ she thought. The woman took a steak knife and sunk it into the ham. Then she pulled it out and touched the hot blade that stung her tips with heat. The food was fully-cooked, so she turned off the oven and closed the door. She looked over at Ronan, who was sitting at the table, and asked, **"Hey Ronan, do you think that Drake will like this ham?"**

The man chuckled and commented, **"Oh yeah, he'll eat it. He's taken a whole cow, ripped it in two and eaten it without cooking before."**

Minerva grinned in amusement and joked, **"Oh my, what a beast! I can't wait to see what he'll do with this poor ham here." She looked down at the meat for a bit before looking back at Ronan and saying, "Well, I might as well take it over to him now."** Then she took out a hard plate from the top cupboard and placed the ham on it. Then she went out the backdoor with the plate in hand and walked over to the dragon. **"Here you go, Drake. I cooked this up for you for breakfast. It's probably not much, but I have food I need to save before I go grocery shopping again," **she said.

Drake smiled and asked, **"Thank you Minerva. Your kindness is rare among humans. I've been observing you and Ronan talking. Seems like you managed to release a lot of the pent up tension inside of him. Has he told you of his past yet? His life before he became the warrior is he today?"**

Minerva recalled to the best of her memory what she learned about Ronan and answered, **"Well he did tell me about his teacher who taught him how to fight. He was kind, just like me. He even showed me his many scars, told me how some people died in his fights, and how he had run-ins with the law before."** She omitted the man's tragic childhood and his revenge on the mafia who kidnapped her as Drake had been there when his friend told her the story of his past at the carnival. **"That's all I know,"** she finished.

The dragon smirked and said, **"If he's told you that much, then it is clear he is fond of you."** He rested his head down on his claws. **"Ronan has a gentle heart, but the world has covered that with a rough exterior. If you've learned as much as you have about him and if you've shared the same amount with him, I wouldn't be surprised about anything."**

Minerva smiled gleefully and said, **"Well I suppose that would be fair. Maybe I could start talking about myself at the table. I just have to figure out how to start this off first. Any suggestions, Drake?"**

Drake laughed and told her, **"My dear Minerva, I've lived over three hundred years and seen more romances than you could dream of, and through all I've learned there remains one consistent fact. If you like Ronan, and I bet deep down he has feelings for you, you have to find your own way. Love is a tricky thing. Trust me. You'll know what to do."** He winked at her before shutting his eyes to rest.

The woman blushed red on her cheeks. **"Me and Ronan, together? But we've only known each other for two days and today. How can he fall in love with me?"** she asked before she quickly realized something. **"Oh wait, he must be having a crush."** She figured that must be because of how nicer she was compared to most of everybody else he's met before. **"And to be honest, I also have a crush on him,"** she admitted. Since it went both ways, the woman figured that she could give her hero a chance at forming a relationship. **"Well I should be going back inside now. I can't keep your friend waiting,"** she said. Then Minerva went back inside the house and sat at the table with Ronan who then made a smirk. She noticed he hasn't touched his food yet. She smiled a bit amused and thought, _'Looks like he doesn't want to start without me.'_

The man gave her a small chuckle and said, **"I was being polite; besides, I didn't want to eat alone."**

Minerva picked up the fork and took up a piece of the scrambled egg. After she ate it, she spoke to the man, **"So can I tell you more about my job?"**

Ronan ate and answered, **"Certainly. I am curious about this 'organization' that is supportive of dragons. Never met one anywhere else on my travels."**

Minerva began to tell about ADR, **"Okay, so like I said, ADR is a dragon rights organization. I work for them as a journalist intern. Any events that happen related slavery, dragons, and our goals, I write them up in the computer so that they put these news on their website. Today, my boss called me to write down news about the city hall's magic learning program; you know, the place where I learned how to do water magic."** She ate another piece of the scramble eggs, before continuing, **"And he also gave me the option of printing PDFs of the flyers and place them all over the city. They're advertising a dragon literacy program to help dragons and halflings learn how to read. It's a program that they're going to start in the next two weeks."**

The man replied in a fascinated tone, **"Interesting. You know, I don't think I've ever known a human that could do magic. Sounds a little outside my league. With so much persecution going on for dragons and those friendly to dragons, it's surprising that no one has attacked the city hall in protest against their magic teaching."**

**"I've never heard of humans doing magic either," **said the woman. **"I was surprised when I saw a woman using magic to rebuild the city to normal, and that was before the city hall started the magic learning programs. Anyway, I think a lot of people are more excited about learning to do magic than they are hating dragons. That's probably why there haven't been any protests over there yet."** It was probably a good thing as this will give people and dragons a chance to better understand each other while learning together as students.

Ronan nodded and said, **"As long as it keeps their minds occupied and the protesters quiet, I'm all for it."** He finished up his breakfast rather quickly with the other being done a few minutes later. **"Minerva... I thank you for helping me with the school. It's not going to be easy to establish it though. A lot of work has to go into it. You know, I was thinking... maybe you could be co-founder. You can run the financials and business aspects of the school, and I can focus on teaching. You don't have to if you don't want to."**

The woman smiled and said, **"Oh Ronan, I would be honored to. Though I'll admit that I don't know how to run the financials. But maybe some research on the computer can help me learn how to do this."** The only things she knew about running financials were recording sales and counting money. The business part she knew was advertising, but she may have to hire a graphic designer for that.

Ronan smiled back and replied, **"Fantastic! We should get to work on this as soon as possible. The sooner we start the sooner we can get construction designs established and have the school built."**

**"Right, I'll go look up online to see what we can do first,"** said Minerva.

Then the man said, **"To show you my gratitude for everything you've done and are going to do... allow me the honor of escorting you out to dinner tonight."** He was undeniably asking her out on a date. Then he stated, **"Though I have no formal attire except my robes."**

The woman was excited with joy at the man's generosity. She beamed, **"Oh Ronan, that would be so wonderful! And don't worry; I don't mind what you were as long as we're on a date."**

Ronan replied,**"Wonderful... I-I'll um... I'll go look for a place to eat."** He got up and went upstairs**.**

**"Okay, I can't wait to see what you have in mind,"** Minerva said. Then, she picked up the plates, cups, and utensils and put them into the sink to wash. She scrubbed off every stain, crumb, and little food pieces with the green &amp; yellow sponge. Once everything was washed, she put them in the dish drainer to dry. Then she went upstairs to her room to get started on the news article she is to work on until Ronan gets back. She sat at the laptop, logged in to ADR's website and started writing down the article. Minerva worded each sentence in the article carefully to make the news informative as she can and not just emotional-appeal. She even put the image of an elemental master teaching his students at the city hall on top of the article with a caption below it.

* * *

Axle came away from the tree he was leaning on and picked up a pine cone. **"So, where to start you? I know,"** he said calmly as he walked closer to Atlas. He gripped tight on the pine cone, crushing it a bit in his hand. **"Rules, no magic or changing forms. Everything else is allowed. This set of rules apply to all training styles and including me. Let me just say this; 'when a creature is faced against death, they can do anything they thought would be impossible before',"** he said coldly, almost as if he was trying to tell her something that would be of great help later in the future. Atlas figured that he was talking about foes like Spinx and Dracul, like if they would resort to surprise attacks. The woman looked serious and understood risks that may show up in the future. **"We will start off by you just simply walking and running."** He showed how to walk and then run. **"Now you try,"** he said. Atlas did her best to mimic his moment. She walked a bit more normally like a human this time, but still remained careful about she moved. The man simply watched her from a distance. **"Your walking needs a little bit more work, and let the movement flow more freely. Let it come more naturally,"** Axle told her as he still kept a watchful eye on her progress.

This time Atlas put aside her vigilance and moved around. It went fine without any problems at all. Now being used to walking, the woman thought about increasing her pace a little bit to see if she can walk just as fine like that. She went a bit faster this time to try it out. Again, no trouble at all. Wanting to know if she had walked right, she asked, **"Hey Axle, how did I do?"**

The man nodded in approval and told her,**"Now you have walking down, we can try running. I will show you, but I must warn you, you won't be able to run for long. Your human form will not be used to it."**He grinned a bit as he soon went into a full sprint and was soon gone in the trees, almost like he vanish among the trees.

Atlas decided to show him that she would be just as good as him. **"Hah, we'll see about that!"** she said. The woman dashed after him through the woods. But it didn't take too long for her to trip over a tree trunk. **"Whoa!"** she shouted before she fell down on her face. She got dirt in her mouth and spat out it out in distaste.

Axle went over to her and just hummed a bit as he reach his hand out for her. **"You still have to watch your footing still and what is coming-**" he said as he grin a bit, **"And I don't think the dirt will be a very useful as a food source."**

Atlas took his hand and was helped up onto her feet. **"Yeah, no kidding,"**she replied. She hoped that she would never have to taste that again. Getting ready to move, the woman said, **"Right, I'm going to try this again. Raaahh!"** Then she started running again.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I think this is a good place to end the chapter. I really want to get back to Kathia, but I know it's going to take an hour and a half (fanfic time) for her to get to Windfall from Sundown. I don't think it's been over an hour yet, so it's probably going to take a few more chapters to get back to her, depending on how long the Atlas's and Aeolus's stories go.


	31. The Horde Meeting

**Chapter 30: The Horde Meeting**

Aeolus was now back at the lake with his two recruits. Baltia fluttered, surprised and disorientated by the teleportation spell.**"Huh? What happened?"** she said, turning around wildly.

The horde leader ignored her and started to make his announcement to the horde, **"Vulture Horde, we have two new members with us."** The dragons all turned their attention to their leader and the newcomers. The disaster dragon looked at the big cassare and said, **"This is Yopple a part-magi cassare dragon, whose abilities of both breeds will come in handle."** The magi cassare stood taller in appearance as if he was trying to have a good representation.

The horde was surprised by Yopple's very large size as well as his breed. **"Wow, he's huge,"** said one of Fakoo's albino sisters.

Orion asked, **"I don't think I've ever seen a cassare this big. What has he been eating?"**

A wasp pygmy asked, **"A cassare who's part magi? How did this happen?"**

Then Aeolus looked over to the dark myst and said, **"And this is Baltia. She doesn't really fight, but she is good at distracting humans with her annoying pranks. Helpful for when we need their guards away from something important. She'll also spy and steal, too."** Yopple's orange scales flared and glowed in annoyance at the mention of the pygmy.

Baltia stopped turning and hovered. **"Ummm... Hi?"** she giggled nervously.

Aeolus continued by explaining his story, **"I found these two over at the home of Pyro's clan; they're not members though. I was trying to convince the leader to lend us some of his clanmates to join the horde. He is currently considering whether to support our cause or not. I have all day to wait until I hear an answer from him. If there is no telepathic response, then we won't have new members."**

Kekul raised his voice over the horde and asked, **"Aeolus, is this clan full of cassares?"  
**  
The horde leader answered, **"It is. Are you concerned that their presence will stop you from using magic?"** He knew he was going to get something like that from one of his horde members, especially the magis.

Kekul expressed his concern, **"As a matter-of-fact, I am. Having only one cassare is fine; but how are my mate and I suppose to do our jobs if we got a bunch of them around? They're going to be a liability."**

Aeolus answered, **"It's simple; just stay far away from the cassares and you'll do fine. And don't worry; I will put them in places where they can't affect you every time we go to raid settlements."**

**"Well okay, that's fine by me,"** the magma magi said.

But Kekul wasn't one worried as Hewey the healer dragon also asked, **"Aeolus, I don't mind having cassares around, but I'm concerned about how I'm going to heal any wounds they have. As you said, they have the ability to disable the magic powers of anyone nearby. Because my healing is magic; I'm afraid it will be impossible for me to use my powers on them."**

**"Hmm yes, that would be a problem,"** the disaster dragon said. An alternative to heal cassares is a must and he had a good idea what to do. Aeolus said, **"But we can solve this by going into human cities and raiding whatever medicines they have there."**

Corona added her suggestion, **"And we can also be on the lookout for medical herbs as well."**

The horde leader nodded and said, **"Yes, good idea Corona."** When nobody else had anything to say about Pyro's clan, Aeolus went on to the next topic, **"Now that we're done talking about cassares, I believe it's now time we have a talk with Axle about Shadow Wind. Where is he?"**

Tavurth the brute dragon said, **"I think I saw him go into the woods with Atlas and his family."**

**"Bring him to me; I need to hear more about his side of the story,"** Aeolus told him. The brute dragon went into the woods to fetch the dragon lord.

* * *

Atlas kept on running through the woods. Her heart was beating fast with energy, but now she was panting from the tightening strain on her chest. She knew she was tired and thought, _'Damn, Axle was right when he said that I wouldn't be used to it.'_ She didn't want to stop though, not yet. She wanted to go on until she was really tired. The woman went on until she saw her nieces and a navy blue dragon in sight. The bigger dragon had been chasing the laughing hatchlings for fun. Their game soon ended when the navy blue saw Atlas and stopped his pursuit. The woman also tried to stop, but she ended up skidding on dirt and throwing her upper body forward to the point where she nearly fell over. The dragon yelled, **"Oh my gods, a human! Hang on, hatchlings. I'll go kill it for you."**

As he ran towards the woman, the sisters tried to tell him, **"No Bam, that's Aunt Atwas!"**

Their words seemed to have fallen on deaf ears as Bam kept charging. Seeing how her life was in danger, Atlas transformed back into a dragoness and growled at him. The navy blue stopped and realized his mistake. **"Whoa, whoa, whoa, you're a dragon?"** he asked.

The magi snarled, **"Yes, I'm a dragon and you just tried to kill me, you numbskull!"**

Bam felt ashamed and apologized, **"Oh geez, I'm so sorry. I thought you were a human. I didn't mean to..." **Then he saw Axle behind her and cried,**"Oh my gods, a human! Hang on, I'll go kill it."**

As he ran towards Axle, Atlas growled, **"What the ****?! That's not a human either, stupid!"**

The man slid his foot across the ground and came to a quick stop without falling over. He changed into his dragon form and walked by the navy blue dragon, who tried stopping himself by pushing his front feet back as his bottom skid on the ground for a few seconds before he crashed into a tree. Bam was seeing started for short time before he shook himself out of daze and went over to the sisters to whom he said, **"Well false alarm. Come on, let's go back to playing tag!"** Then the three went back to their game.

Axle went to the magi and said, **"Now that you have the basic down, you can train in weaponry, archery, climbing, swimming, and free style running. The whole nine yards if you wish."** Axle sounded if he was happy about Atlas progress on her training of the basic. **"And don't worry about permission from now on, once it given, it does not go away unless you wish to stop the training."**

The dragoness grinned and replied, **"Sweet! I can't wait to get started on them."**

Then Juna and Mekarth returned with the latter asking, **"Done with training already? That did not take long."**

Juna then spoke, **"That was quick. But then again, most of your training sections were. Now that you got that out of the way, can we get to the more pressing matter."** She said with almost authority in her voice, sounding like a high rank officer now.

Atlas asked, **"That's going to be about Spinx or Dracul, right?"**

Axle nodded to her as he turned to his sister. **"Could we discuss that issue in a bit?"** he asked. Then he soon followed it up with a whisper that was loud enough for Atlas to hear, **"Too many wondering ears are around to discuss about our home land or those who threaten her people."** Juna nodded her head. Atlas knew that by 'those who threaten her people', Axle was talking about the Vulture Horde. Apparently, Juna must have shared her wariness of Aeolus with her brother. The magi was about to defend her friend and tell them how he's a changed dragon, when the brute dragon from last night showed up.

Their heads turned towards him as Juna asked, **"Can I help you with something?"**

Tavurth answered, **"Aeolus wants to see Axle about who he really is. I don't know why, but it might be important. So come on and let's see what he has to say."**

The magi was dumbfounded and asked, **"What? I just told yesterday that Axle's the good guy? What more does he want?"**

**"I don't know, but I bet he must be looking for more details I guess,"** the brute dragon said.

Axle look shook his head for a bit. **"If Atlas told you what I told her, there really is no need for him to go deeper in to the subject,"** he said, sounding a little disappointed with Aeolus. **"But might as well see what he wants."**

The look Juna gave the brute was not a very nice look, almost like she did not like the idea of Aeolus being talked with. **"Hmph!"** huffed Tavurth with an equally disdained look that she gave him. Then he walked with Atlas and the others back to where the horde is at.

* * *

Baltia looked up at Aeolus like a lost kitten and asked, **"What just happened? Where are we? How did we get here?"**

The horde leader answered, **"I used the stone to teleport us here, Baltia."** The dark myst fluttered in wonder. Then he turned his attention to the horde and told them, **"Alright Vulture Horde, listen up! After we ambush Axle last night, we learned that Atlas and Axle's family were human-friendly."** The disdained words and growls from the horde filled the air, even from some of those who were there last night. **"Yes, I know how upsetting it is to hear about a dragon who loves his oppressors. But that is only because they have been deceived by the humans' seemingly kind appearances. They have no idea that these same humans will one day show their true colors and end up betraying them later. I have seen these events happen a few times in my long life; even when it's humans back-stabbing one of their own." **Then he went on to explain some environmental reasons, **"But even if some of the humans are somehow genuinely kind, they are still a threat to this planet by how much they pollute. They kill plants that give us our oxygen, they dirty up our waters with their wastes, thus poisoning any of us who drink them, and they even contaminate the air we breathe. And because they don't know when to control their own population, the whole lot of them will kill our world faster."** The horde leader sighed and said, **"If only those four fools knew the dangers of humanity."**

One of the leaf pygmies shouted, **"Then we should tell them now before it's too late."**

**"No,"** Aeolus declined. **"I doubt any of them will be willing to listen to reason; especially that Juna, who distrusts me."** Given everything he's heard from Juna, the disaster dragon knew that the Incarus family would so inclined to defend their human citizens. **"Besides, I lied to Atlas about how we're going to spare the 'good' humans, so that I can get the transformation spell for us to learn."**

**"A transformation spell?"** asked a curious canopy dragon.

Aeolus nodded and replied, **"Yes, a spell that'll turn us into humans so that we can infiltrate their places and spy on them without suspicion. I intend to us to train with that spell later." **He glanced at Baltia, thinking about how one of his magis would use that spell on her to give her the appearance of a child so that she would look less threatening around the guards when she's distracting them. Looking back at the crowd, he told them, **"Now anyway, I need everyone to pretend that we're a changed horde, so that we don't upset Axle and others when they get here. And don't even breathe a word about any of this or our true intentions, understood?" **

The horde responded, **"Yes sir!"**

**"Good!"** said the leader. Then he saw Atlas's nieces bursting out of the woods with Bam running after them as they all laughed.

**"Stop, I can't catch you!"** the navy blue dragon said playfully.

Aeolus frowned at how his cousin wasn't around to hear his message. Now he was going to have to go over with him, or better yet make someone else do it. _'Bam, where were you while I was talking to the horde?'_ he asked telepathically.

Bam stopped and replied, _'I was out playing with the hatchling. What did I miss?'_

The disaster dragon answered, _'The introduction of our two newest members and how we're going to keep our horde's purpose a secret when Axle gets here. Now I need you to stop this silly game and sit with us. And please stay silent at all times until our guests are gone.'_

_'Yes, cous,'_ Bam replied. Then he looked at the sisters with a sad face and said, **"Sorry girls, I got to go."** Danielle and Kylie made protesting "aww"s as they wanted the fun adult to keep playing with them. Bam went up to the horde and sat with them.

Baltia asked the horde leader, **"Who are Atlas and Axle? Or more importantly, what do they look like? Also, could you show me around? I'm afraid I'm a little bit new here."** She chuckled slightly, still hovering with no signs of tiring from being in the air so long.

Aeolus started with the first question, **"Atlas is a magi dragoness and is a friend of mine; she looks like your typical magi, except that she's got a red tint to her scales. Axle is a white dragon and a dragon lord from Shadow Wind. He may come to us in human form. So if you see a dark-haired man in white clothes; don't attack him, even when there's other humans with him. They could be Atlas and his siblings."** He stopped to breathe a bit before going onto the next question. **"And lastly, there's nothing of interest around here. We, the Vulture Horde, are a traveling group. We don't set up permanent territories at places we stop. Our goal of worldwide human extinction should have clued you in on that,"** the horde leader told her.

The dark myst nodded and said, **"Reddish magi; white or dark-haired human. Got it! And I didn't expect a permanent territory to be set up, just a temporary camp or something. Like, 'over here we eat, over here we hunt, over there we sleep and this is where we hold meetings.'"** She looked around. **"What does everyone do at about this time? More importantly, what should I be doing?"**

**"Nothing,"** Aeolus answered. **"We're all sitting here to wait for Axle to come, so we can hear from him and see if any parts of Dracul's story about Axle are true. And then after that, we're going to do some combat training to prepare ourselves to fight Dracul and capture him."** Having a horde learn how to fight other dragons would improve their chances of survival against enemies such as whatever dragon soldiers Dracul soldiers and the Aquarians. The disaster dragon thought to get Atlas to participate in this too, since her fighting skills as a dragon champion of the coliseum fights in Northeast Rudvich would likely to get passed on to his horde through teaching.

Baltia shrugged and said, **"Guess I'll hunt then. Hey, any way I could collect lots of small stones and keep them with me? I normally carry a few, but I can only have four at a time. I'll find them, I'd just like a way to carry more than one or two with me while I fly. Gotta be invisible or black though, so I can still hide with it."** Her green eyes were bright but serious and she stayed still in the air for once, looking at the horde leader.

**"Yes, go ahead,"** the disaster dragon told her. **"But be sure to get back when Axle and the others get here so that you don't miss out on anything important."**

The dark myst gave a slightly annoyed chatter, but nodded. **"I'll be quick. What I meant, though, was do you have any kind of magical contraption that would let me carry more than one or two at once?"**

**"Unfortunately, I don't have anything that can help you out,"** Aeolus responded. Then he thought about a certain dragoness who could help her out by using magic. **"But you can try asking Enamora, the pure-bred magi dragoness, for help. She may have some spells that will help carry the extra stones,"** he advised. Then she angled herself for a quick flight into the forest.

Just then, Tavurth had returned with the group for the meeting. The brute reported to the horde leader, **"Aeolus, Axle's here."**

The disaster dragon looked at the group and said, **"Good, now let's get down to business.**"

Atlas asked him, **"Alright Aeolus, what is it you want with Axle?"**

Aeolus answered, **"I need to see him about a certain story that Dracul told me. The wicked indeed do lie, but they can also tell the truth if they are willing."** Then he looked at the white dragon and said, **"Axle of Shadow Wind, we heard that you killed someone named Crimsrion Drago and have purchased slaves of all races. Is that true?" **Axle's mouth fell open in shock at the mention of the name. Both Juna and Mekarth let a small growled out at the horde leader and gave him that look like they were going to rip his throat out. The disaster dragon was unfazed by the two sibling's angry looks.

The magi looked at him dumbfounded and asked, **"What?! I just already told you that this was all a lie!"**

**"Indeed you did, Atlas,"** the horde leader said. **"But I need to hear an answer from Axle himself, since there are some things that you don't know that goes on in his life."**

**"Aeolus, is it?"** the white dragon asked. **"Well I have to deny you a lot of information of Crimsrion Drago, whose real name is Drago Rionscrim. I hate to say it, but that certain event is classified to just the lords of Shadow Wind and us. The only thing you can know is that Drago was turned to a vampire dragon and what was done to him was not death, but was sealed away. Everything else I can't say.**" Axle sounded nervous and Juna and Mekarth seemed uneasy now.

Aeolus noticed their nervousness and wondered what made the former dragon lords weary of the vampire, but decided not to press on the issue as it was unimportant compared to the next one. **"Okay then,"** he simply replied.

Axle continued, **"Then the slave thing. Though that is partly true, he did however forgot to tell you that soon after within about 20 minutes, they were freed. Soon after that they were given the choice to live among the city as legal citizen or to leave and find their own path. The ones that left were always welcome to come back if they need to and a few did. The ones that stayed mostly lived among my walls and get provided education, work skills, training, and nature knowledge. I provided everything for every race, human, halfling and dragon alike. Food, shelter, water, and a place to call home. Most of the guards that protected my castle are former slaves; even my generals are former slaves as well. If you don't believe me on that, contact a dragon by the name of Akil. She's currently the one in charge of protecting my castle when I left. Though that is her name, I had to give it to her because she had none."** Axle then looked at his sister, who seemed to have that look at Aeolus like she was just waiting for him to make a move, like she want a reason to spring on him.

Atlas decided to tell her friend, **"See Aeolus? That red-scaled bastard was lying to you! He tried to get you to go after Axle so that he can keep Shadow Wind in hell."**

**"Yes, I see the truth now, Atlas,"** the disaster dragon said. The white dragon did seem pretty honest about his story and even backed up his innocence by suggesting to contact Akil. **"Clearly, Dracul is the guilty one who needs to be punished for his crimes."** Looking back at the white dragon, he asked, **"So Axle, what will you do from here on out? Do you plan to return to Shadow Wind someday and retake back your home?"**

Axle look at Aeolus for a second before replying, **"I have to finish the quest my father sent me on first before I can return back home. Once I do return home, I will have no choice but to take back our home and force Dracul out and who ever follows him."** Both of his siblings seemed to have calmed down.

**"So you'll be fighting Dracul then,"** said Aeolus. It was just as expected; Axle was going to war against his own relative. But before the horde can get themselves involved for a chance to learn Shadow Wind's layout and plan a strike there for much later in the future, he asked, **"Will you be expecting large number of Dracul's forces when you return home? Or will this be a duel to settle things once and for all?"** Hopefully it was the former, so that the horde leader will have an excuse to "aid" the three siblings and dethrone the tyrant. If not, then he can always use Atlas to telepathically show him the image of the location in case they ever need reinforcements to come.

Then he heard a telepathic message from Baltia, _'I have a deer, but I'll need help getting it back. I'm not that far into the forest, so just follow the scent.'_

_'Alright, I'll send someone to help,'_ the horde leader replied. He made a telepathical connection with Enamora and said, _'Enamora, Baltia went hunting in the forest and needs your help to bring back the deer. Also she's trying to collect some stones for herself. Can you create something that should help her carry everything she needs?'_

The magi dragoness replied, _'Certainly, I'll go track down her scent and help her out.'_ Then she went into the woods to look for the dark myst.

Axle had been silent for a bit as if he was trying to think about what to say. Before any word could escape his mouth, Juna stepped in and said with a shaking head,**"Dracul is a bit of a loose cannon. He would more likely go to war against us."**

The white dragon agreed with his sister, **"She's right. Both him and Arch just recently took Shadow Wind, which would mean they had to have an army to back them up. So a war over our home is more possible than a single-on dual. Though your help would be welcomed, there a small problem. Do to the layout of Shadow Wind, there are too many places for slip and ambushes. We would have to teach each dragon here, single handed, the whole layout of the city."** Axle sounded calm but upset a bit and continued, **"There's more risk than reward in that option. The last thing I would want is for Atlas to follow me all the way back to the city with the young she has with her. If she does though, I would have no choice but to protect her and the young to the best of my abilities."**

Aeolus understood that last part of Axle's words well and agreed with them. The hatchlings would certainly be a liability in this war. They needed a safe place to be in until the war against Dracul was over. **"Your concern is in the right place, Axle. And fortunately, I know a good place where Atlas's nieces will be safe," **he said.

**"You do?"** asked Atlas, eager to hear what her friend had to say. **"Show me in my mind where it is, Aeolus. I'll gladly send them there right now."**

The disaster dragon replied, **"Okay then, this is the place I am talking about, Atlas."** He telepathically sent her an image of the largest room of Doubloon's cave village and said, _'This is where I stayed for one night before forming the Vulture Horde. The leader of this village is Chief Doubloon. When you meet him, tell him that I sent you here for your nieces to stay at until Shadow Wind has been saved. There'll be hatchlings there for them to play with.'_

_'Thanks Aeolus, I owe it to you,'_ said the magi gratefully.

The disaster replied, _'You're very welcome.'_

Atlas went past the horde dragons and made her way over to the hatchlings. **"Danielle, Kylie, say good bye to these dragons. I'm taking you over to a village,"** she told them.

Taking what their aunt said literally, the hatchlings looked at the horde and said their goodbyes to them. The dragons smiled back at them with a few returning their goodbyes. Bam waved at them and beamed, **"Bye, it was nice having fun with you. We should play again sometime!"** Then Atlas teleports herself and her nieces to the village.

* * *

A bright flash appeared at the village entrance and the two guards, both of them male geode dragons, got startled by sudden appearance of the magi and two hatchlings. **"Hey, who goes there?!"** cried one of the guards.

The magi answered, **"My name is Atlas and I need a safe place for Danielle and Kylie to stay until we save a city from an evil dictator who needs his ass handed to him."** She looked down briefly at her two nieces. Looking back at the geodes, she continued, **"Aeolus told me to come here for that."**

**"So you need shelter, huh?"** asked the guard on the left. **"Okay, I'll let our chief, Doubloon, know about you and Quartz here can take you to him."** The guard closed his blue eyes telepathically contacted the chief. When it was done, he reopened his eyes and tilted his head to the inside of the cave to gesture allowance of entrance. **"Well welcome to the village. Go tell Chief Doubloon about your story and he'll let these hatchlings stay."**

Quartz stepped from his post and said to the family, **"Right then, follow me."** The Firestars followed the geode through the tunnels and got to the chieftain's cave. **"Chief Doubloon, Atlas and company are here."**

The orange-winged light brown dragon, who was laying on a hard soil slab, looked at the guard and replied, **"Okay, send them in."** Quartz stepped back to the side and allowed the Firestars to pass. Doubloon looked at the magi and said, **"So you must be Aeolus's acquaintance, Atlas, right?"**

**"Yep, that's me,"** Atlas confirmed.

The chief told her about Aeolus, **"Your friend helped out with the building of this village and possibly saved us from the getting hunted by the humans near us."**

The magi smiled with pride and said, **"He sure is a good guy, ain't he? He even destroyed a group of humans who were going around killing dragons. And now he's going to help me and Axle save Shadow Wind from that bastard, Dracul."**

Doubloon smiled and said, **"Ahh, always playing the hero, isn't he? You're lucky to have a friend like that, Atlas."**

**"That I am!"** the magi beamed with a grin.

Then the chief went on to business and told her, **"Anyway Atlas, we'll keep these hatchlings with you safe here until your return. Just don't let anything bad happen to you until then, okay?"**

**"You have my word, sir!"** Atlas promised. Then she looked at her nieces and told them, **"Danielle, Kylie, you two be good while I'm gone, okay?"**

**"Yes, Aunt Atwas!"** said the hatchlings simultaneously.

Looking back at the chief, Atlas said, **"Alright Doubloon, I'll see you later."** Then she teleported back to the lake.

* * *

Baltia and Enamora had returned with a magic-made bag of stones and two prey to eat with the crimson flares. Axle looked at Juna before he asked, **"Juna, can you and Mekarth train them in the basic layout of the city?"** The silver grinned at the idea before she spoke back.

Juna turned her head towards Aeolus as she said, **"Sure, but I won't like it. I know we need the help, but I honestly don't like the idea." **Mekarth heard what his brother said, but didn't say anything.

Axle turned his head back to Aeolus and spoke, **"So that's settled; Juna and Mekarth will train those who can be train in the city layout, so you are a bit more prepare when you are needed. I have to return back on my journey, and I would like it if Atlas came with me as well."**

The horde leader replied, **"That is fine by me, Axle. Just make sure she doesn't get killed. Her nieces already lost their parents; they don't need to lose another caretaker."**

Axle promised, **"I will not let that happen, Aeolus. Not while I breath air and still have a beating heart."** It seems he meant every word he said.

Then Aeolus looked at the magi and asked, **"Atlas, will you be alright on your own? Do you need any of my horde member's help?"**

Atlas assured him, **"Don't worry about me, Aeolus. I know how to get around Spinx's tricks and know when to warp away. He won't get us."** She was pretty confident on how she would fight the necromancer in the future.

The horde leader told her, **"Well if you're sure of yourself, then I have no further concerns. But Atlas, if you ever need help on this journey; don't hesitate to talk to me, alright?"**

**"Got it, thanks for your concern, Aeolus,"** the magi replied. Then she looked to the white dragon and asked, **"Ready to go, Axle?"**

Just then, Baltia flew close over to the pair and asked, **"Where are you going? Should I come? I'd like something to do..."**

Axle told her, **"I would not wish to get you into harm's way. It's best if you stay here for now."** Then he turned his attention to Atlas and calmly said, **"We may leave now, if you wish."** His brother and sister walked away, sounding if they were discussing something.

**"Oh, we're going right now,"** the magi said to him. Then she said to the disaster dragon, **"Bye Aeolus."** Without waiting for a response from him, she teleported herself and Axle out of Solomos.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I couldn't figure out a good title for this chapter besides "The Horde Meeting."

Quartz (c) me


	32. Make the Half-Breed Pay

**Chapter 31: Make the Half-Breed Pay**

Doubloon looked at the two sisters and said, **"Well since we have guests here, I might as well show you around the village."** He got off his slab and told them, **"Follow me younglings, I'll tell you everything you need to know."**

**"Okay,"** replied the hatchlings. Danielle and Kylie followed the chief out of his room and together they walked through the tunnels, learning what the various rooms are for.

Going to the largest room where a bunch of dragons were mingling with each other, Doubloon informed, **"This wide place is where many dragons hang out in their leisure times and also where we have meetings as to what's going on. We will be having one about you hatchlings shortly after the tour." **

**"Weally?"** asked Kylie.

Doubloon nodded answered, **"Yes, so that everyone here will know who you are. Now come, we have some more to go see."** Going down the tunnels, the hatchlings looked at all the cave as the chief explained, **"These caves are nests belonging to our residents. The section we're at is where daytime dragons like you and me sleep at when night falls. The other section we'll be going next is for the nocturnal dragons; they're nighttime dragons, so they sleep during the day and wake up at night."**

**"Why?"** asked Danielle curiously. She thought it was strange for dragons to be nocturnal. She and her sister always believed that everyone was awake during the day and only slept at night.

"**Well it's because some breeds of dragons are like that,"** answered Doubloon. Then the chief and hatchlings went on their way to the nocturnal section as Doubloon said, **"We shall have a room built for you two later."**

Kylie inquired, **"Is it going to be wike da other caves?"**

**"Yes it will be," **the chief answered. Soon, they got to the beginning of the nocturnal section and said, **"Now do you see these dark crystals at the start of the tunnels? They lead you to the nocturnal section. Whenever you see these crystals, you are to never go beyond them during the daytime. You'll disturb their sleep if you do. Do you understand?"**

Kylie nodded as Danielle promised, **"Okay Doubwoon, we won't go dere."**

**"Good girls,"** the chief said. **"Now let's go over to the large room. The whole village needs to know about you two."** Then they all went over there.

* * *

With Atlas and Axle gone to finish their quest, Aeolus looked to his horde and told them, **"Vulture Horde, we shall commence our training from Mekarth and Juna immediately."**

Yopple perked his ears up and eagerly said, **"Training, eh? Well it is about time, sir." **The magi cassare walked over, craning his neck. **"So, Aeolus sir, how shall this work?"** the dragon asked.

The horde leader answered, **"I don't know. We'll just have to hear it from Axle's siblings. They're the ones teaching us what to do."**

Juna stopped and turned her head to Aeolus to shoot him a defiant look. **"No, we are not and for a few reasons. One, we don't have a big enough area to make a small section of Shadow Wind. Two, you are not yet worthy of my training. And three, someone a little to eager to train. Till all three are met, no one is training under our wing except for that small pygmy that is flying around,"** the dragoness said as she turn back and continued to talk with her brother.

The atmosphere was filled with various complaints by the horde at Juna not wanting to teach them. Bam whined, **"Oh come on, that's not cool!"**

Orion growled, **"Don't you care about your city?!"**

**"What's her problem?!" **huffed Fakoo.

Aeolus frowned at her and thought, _'Looks like I'll need to work hard at gaining her trust if I am to liberate my fellow dragons and slaughter off the humans.'_ The question was how he would be able to do it. The first requirement, he can do easily by migrating the horde to a different place. But the last two were going to be difficult with the second being the most hardest if he was to try at it alone. Good thing there was Baltia for the job. Juna did make an exception for her, so the dark myst would be free to get trained by her and then pass on that training to the rest of the horde. _'Looks like she's more useful than I expected,'_ the horde leader thought.

Then Baltia fluttered around Aeolus with a hopeful look on her face. **"Where are you going?"** she repeated. **"Can I come too?"**

Where are you going? These words got the horde leader thinking about where they needed to go right now. He thought about the Eternal Wind clan's village; the very place that Rina used to live in. The caves would be temporary homes to the horde and the surrounding desert would provide a very large space to train the dragons; thus fulling the first requirement. **"We're going to the desert, Baltia,"** the horde leader answered. **"And yes, you're coming, too,"** he added. Yopple nodded in agreement at the sound of going to the desert. Aeolus looked to everyone and made an announcement, **"Vulture Horde, it looks like we won't be getting our training soon, but can still meet one of the objectives by going somewhere else. And I know just the place in mind."**

Kekul asked him, **"Really? What is it?"**

Aeolus answered, **"A desert, a place that I'll give you a mental image of right now."** Then he telepathically sent him and Enamora the image of the Eternal Wind clan's village. _'There's also empty caves there for when we need to cool off from the heat,'_ he said.

The magma magi smiled and said, _'Well that looks like a perfect place to be on. Okay, my mate and I will send everyone there.'_

**"Yes sir. W-"** Yopple couldn't even finish before he and the rest of the horde were teleported to a village.

* * *

Atlas and Axle appeared at the spring cave and went to edge of the cliff. Looking at the silhouette of a mountain at the very far distance, she asked, **"Hey Axle, you think that's Trident Mountain over there?"**

**"Maybe,"** the white dragon said as he looked at the mountain. **"But there is one way to find out. But we are not going by air,"** he said as he looked at Atlas. **"Mind if we just walk there?"** he asked. **"It would provide much needed time for Juna and Mekarth to train Aeolus and the others. Maybe."** He was talking about if they passed Juna's test.

Atlas liked the idea and replied, **"Well okay as long as I'm going there as a human."** This would give her more experience in being in human form. Before she could go down on ground, she smelled a human scent nearby. The magi looked behind her to see if Spinx or anybody else was in the cave. But there was no one there. Then she looked down to see if a human was climbing up. Again, she didn't see anything. So when she moved her head up to see if one was above the cave, she spotted a teenage halfling hovering in the air. He appeared to be part black dragon from the looks of his horns and wings. She also noticed that he was staring at them. **"What are you looking at?"** she asked.

The boy smiled before he replied back, **"You and your friend, who else?"**

The magi was about to respond when she heard an echoing voice from somewhere above, **"Hello?"**

Atlas turned her head around to see a dirt-covered lumina dragoness looking down at them. **"Yeah? Who are you?"** asked the magi.

Axle shook his head and telepathically said to the magi, _'Atlas, the lumina dragon looks as if she is about to collapse, it seems.'_

Judging the lumina's appearance and nervousness, the magi agreed, _'Yeah, I could have sworn she was neglected and abused.'_ Some dragons, especially the docile breeds, tend to fearful of others after getting touched by their cruel slave owners.

The lumina sorta jumped at the magi's question. **"I-I am Ohimia, and it is nice to meet you!"** she shifted before coughing.

The halfling smiled at the lumina and joked, **"Looks like quite the party down there!"**

Ohimia shifted again and responded, **"Party? I don't see a party? O-OH, I see what you mean."** She looked around after realizing what he meant. **"So, like I said, I am Ohimia. And you are?"** she asked, slightly bowing.

Axle introduced himself and his companion, **"My name is Axle Incarus. This is Atlas Firestar."**

Atlas asked the dragoness, **"So Ohimia, you look like you've had a rough time. What happened? Did you suffer in a human hellhole or something?"**

Ohimia had an unsure on her face and said, **"Only a fraction had to do with humans."** She sat down and started to tell her story, **"You see, I had finally met up with a dragon I hadn't seen in a while. A glowing orange cassare named Yopple. We were raised by a kind human together, a tamer by the name of Esko. Though, he is dead now; killed by dragon haters."** She looked down at her feet sadly.

Atlas's memory took her back to the huge cassare who was glowing orange at the lake. It could have been him, but she dismissed it as highly unlikely as the cassare was in Solomos and the lumina's friend was in Rudvich. For all she knew, that cassare could have been anyone.

The lumina continued, **"But he had found two beings. Two beings that, with power combined, could stop the war. However, they didn't listen and doubted their trouble. I had tried to go after them as well, and I ended up running into two hybrids. One slashed my throat, but one of the two Yopple found healed it."** She gestured to her throat.

Immediately, the magi started growling with anger and seeing red. _'Those bastards, they tried to kill another dragon after I warned them!'_ she thought furiously. They disregarded her, so now it was time for them to pay.

Ohimia told the rest of the story, but the magi didn't care much about that now. **"However by that point, Yopple had changed in personality. He was stone cold and he hated both humans and dragons. It was all too strange; way too strange. He left and I tried to make friends with the pair. One of them shooed me off and I left. I was traveling through forest and dirt for a long while, and I guess that is why I look like I have been through a lot of hell."** Looking back at the two dragons, she asked, **"Did I bore you?"**

Atlas snarled, **"No! Ohimia, which hybrid did this to you?"** She didn't care who it was; she wanted that hybrid dead and she was not about to let anybody stop her this time.

The lumina began to describe her attacker, **"Well, the one that attacked was... black and wore a blue scarf."** Then she started shuddering in fear as if the bad memory had came back to haunt her.

Remembering one of the hybrids she fought some time ago, Atlas thought, _'So it's that same hybrid from Windfall. Okay, now I know who to go after.'_

The halfling boy flew up and landed next to Ohimia. He spoke, **"Well, since it seems we are all doing introductions, I may as well introduce myself. I'm Garin; it's a pleasure to meet all of you."**

The lumina dragoness looked up at Garin and slightly stepped forward. She asked, **"Hello. Did you overhead my name? I-I was going around looking for training."**

Garin answered, **"Yes Ohimia, I overheard your name."**

Axle turned his attention to the magi and coldly said, **"Atlas, don't do anything stupid. Remember why you are here and who you do it for."** He sounded just as pissed as she was. His eyes had lost their softness and kindness in them and was replace with sorrow for the lumina dragoness, but anger as well. Axle put himself between the cave entrance and Atlas to block her way. Too bad, it wouldn't be much help anyway as she can teleport.

**"Don't worry, I'll make this really quick,"** the magi told him. She was pretty sure the fight with the black hybrid would be easier this time, since he probably won't have the help of some allies this time. Plus, he was no Spinx or dragon lord either, so no dark magic or extremely tough to worry about. She pictured the hybrid in her mind and cast a tracking spell. Now knowing where he is, she would teleport right over to where the hybrid was at.

The lumina saw the magi's rage and cried, **"No no no!"** Too late! Atlas has already warped off to punish the attacker.

* * *

Yopple looked around the desert village in confusion. **"Sir, where are we? Is this the place?"** he asked the disaster dragon.

**"It is,"** Aeolus answered. Then he told them what that place was, **"The home of the Eternal Wind clan."**

Corona heard what he said and reasoned, **"Um Aeolus, I'm not sure if we should be warping onto someone else's territory like that. Won't they be angry with us?"**

The horde leader assured her, **"Relax Corona, the clan met their extinction at the hands of humans some time ago. We will be alright."** Then he went on to an important matter at hand, **"Anyway, now that we're in the right place, we may as well do a different kind of training at hand until Juna and her brother feel content teaching us. We're going to be sparring against one another so that we can learn how to fight dragons such as ourselves."** He looked out beyond the village and continued, "**This training will take place outside the village."** Looking back to the horde, he said, **"I will arrange who's against who, so that we can overcome our weaknesses and learn to fight different breeds. But while we train, I will be taking a small group with me to go look for new recruits to build up the horde."**

Stormy the gray dragoness asked, **"So who's going?"**

Aeolus answered, **"I shall take Kekul and Cirrus with me, since I'll need teleportation, a tracking spell, and healing magic for when things get hectic. But before I go, I need to assign different partners for this training. Let's go out into the village."** The horde went out the village and into the open desert. There the disaster dragon started telling them, **"Alright listen up for who get paired up with."** He looked to the pure cassare dragon and said, **"Pyro and Enamora will both spare with each other."** Then he looked at the other cassare and said, **"Yopple, you will be up against Eatorn."** At the red and ember dragons, he told them, **"Sargoth and Udiya will spare."**

Curious about his partner and not wanting to wait, Bam asked, **"So cous, who am I up against?"**

The horde leader paused in displeasure at his cousin interrupting him. So to punish him, he answered, **"Tavurth."**

The navy blue looked dumbfounded with disbelief and answered, **"Huh?!"** There was no way he could take on a big brute dragon like him. Then Aeolus finished up listing the sparring parents.

With all that done, the disaster dragon then said, **"Everyone get with your partners right now."** The horde split into groups and made spaces between one another so that they don't get in the other groups' spars. Then Aeolus said, **"Good! Now I shall take my leave to find new members. Try not to hurt each other badly during your sessions. Should anyone sustain an injury, don't hesitate to tell Hewey about it."** Turning his attention to the magma magi, the horde leader told him, **"We'll go with the dragons I know first. This is the one I want you to take us to."** He telepathically showed Kekul the image of a green dragon with a lilac underbelly and said, _'This is Gneiss; a relative and member of my clan. He should also be able to create earthquakes like me. I need you to track him down and warp us to him.'_

_'Got it, sir,'_ Kekul replied. He placed a tracking spell on Gneiss and learned where he was at. He teleported the trio over to that place there.

* * *

It took Minerva a while to get the article done. With the article on the city hall magic program done, the woman started to work on the one for the dragon literacy program. She wrote down the address to where the ADR is having that program and wrote what it was all about.

* * *

Megan's car had reached the outskirts of Windfall, where it parked on the side of the wall bordering the city. Kathia got of the car and said to the driver, **"I hope you have the patience to wait for me, Megan, because this will take a long time since we can't drive cars there anymore."**

The woman assured her, **"Don't worry, I'll be fine. I brought a book with me to read."** She took out a novel out of the compartment as she said that.

**"Well good for you; that should be easier on your mind,"** the girl said to her. Then she went to the gates, where the guards let her pass in. She made her way through the streets to look for a horse cab that would take her to her home. She found one with no passenger inside on the right side of the street. She quickly ran over to it before the man lets someone else on. **"Stop!"** she cried. The coachman made the horse halt in its tracks. Kathia went around the horse and told the man, **"I need a ride over to my mansion."**

The coachman moved aside to make room for her, in case she needed to sit in the front. **"Well hop on it,"** he said. The girl got into the passenger seat next to him and paid him money. She then told him the directions to her mansion, which the horse cab started to follow now.

* * *

Once Doubloon and the sisters got to the large cave, the chief called all the dragons to the meeting and told them about their guests, **"Everyone, these are our two guests, Danielle and Kylie."** The audience looked to the hatchlings briefly before turning their attention back to the chief. He continued, **"Their aunt brought them here for protection until she and Aeolus defeat a tyrant who has his iron claw over a city. I don't know how long this will take, but if anything happens to her, then these hatchlings will be kept here as permanent residents."**

The nocturnal horde members, who had been listening to the chief, started their own conversation. Eitri said, **"Sounds like we'll be going to Shadow Wind next."**

Zylanon looked confused and asked, **"We're going to help a city with humans living in it? Why? That sounds a bit counterproductive to our cause?"**

Uvanis, one of the non-residential horde members, answered, **"I don't know, but we'll have to hear what Aeolus says later."** They agreed to ask their leader later when night comes.

Doubloon ended the meeting with these words, **"So as long as they are here, I will need everyone to treat these two with kindness at all times. Thank you."** With the meeting over, the dragons went back to whatever they were doing earlier. The chief smiled at the sisters and he dismissed them, **"Now off you go. Feel free to play with the other hatchlings you find."** Then the sisters bounded off to go look for dragons their age.

* * *

A bright flash appeared in the woods and revealed Atlas glaring down at the hybrids. The black hybrid glanced up, seeming more or less unphased at magi's sudden appearance. The other hybrid, the white one, however, seemed more alarmed if anything, though it didn't last long. The magi was snarling at the black one, **"You bastard! You went and tried to kill an innocent dragon! Now you're going to pay!"** She cast a fire aura around herself, letting the flames rise as high as they can.

The black hybrid stared at Atlas flatly and asked in an uninterested tone, **"Who? I mean I've killed a lot of people. You're gonna have to be more specific than that, sweet cheeks."**

Atlas snarled, **"I'm talking about that lumina dragoness, whose throat you slashed."** Then she asked, **"Does the name Ohimia ring a bell to you?"**

The black hybrid blinked once before responding smugly, **"Oh, that imbecile. Yeah, she's lucky I didn't finish her off. The fool asked for it. Prattling on and annoying me after I gave her a merciful warning."** The magi growled hatefully; that bastard sounded just as bad as Ramkot. No remorse for hurting or killing others. He was a psychopath like all the other hybrids; he needed to be killed off right away before someone else gets hurt. Then she cast a volley of fireballs at him. The black hybrid stood still as the fireballs shot at him. They hit him head on, though they slid off his scales like water over oil. **"Thanks for the breeze, peasant. But I'm immune to fire,"** he chuckled lowly.

The white hybrid moved closer to the other one and asked sternly, **"What do you want?"**

Atlas yelled, **"I want that friend of yours dead!"** Seeing as how fire was useless against the black one, she swapped her fire aura for a light aura, which made her body shine brightly like the sun. Then she cast a volley of light balls at the black hybrid.

He moved out of the way this time, letting the balls hit and scorch the ground. The other hybrid moved back away from the attack as well, avoiding the blast radius. The black hybrid extended his claws, licking his teeth with a smirk. **"And it looks like another moron will die in her place,"** he cracked his knuckles.

The magi thought challengingly, _'I'd like to see you try.'_

The white hybrid glared at Atlas with his claws extended. He warned, **"You're a killer yourself! Don't you dare threaten my brother after what you've done. We saw you try to kill our kin for no reason other than his breed. You're no better. Leave now or face both of us; you're outnumbered!"** The black hybrid flickered his eyes over, looking rather amused at his brother.

Atlas roared defiantly, **"Never!"** Then she cast a light beam at the two hybrids, who split up to avoid the spell. She moved it along after the black hybrid, who was trying to run away from the attack. Atlas originally planned to leave the white one alone, but if he was going to get in the way, then he was going to pay the price. Then the hybrids rushed forward at the magi. The white one breathed his ice breath and the black one his fire breath as they drew closer.

Atlas got burned and frosted by their respective breaths. Feeling the intensity of the damage, she wondered why her armor wasn't doing anything to protect her. But then suddenly, she realized why she felt that kind of damage. _'Ah crap! I left my armor back there!'_ she thought, feeling stupid for forgetting it. Oh well, it was too late now. She started this fight, so she must end it. Besides, she knew that Axle would heal her later. Then they drew closer with the white one going for her wings, while the other tried for her underside. It looks like they were willing to risk getting blinded by the light, if they were going to come at her with physical attacks. Just as they were within a foot, the magi had cast offensive light rays from her light aura in an attempt to let the rays burn them.

Both hybrids skidded to a halt before the rays. A few hairs singed on the white hybrid's tail before both managed to pull away. The brothers looked at each other briefly and the black hybrid sprayed spurts of magma at Atlas's side. The white one shot his ice breath onto the spurts, turning them into a spray of rock daggers, which then hit her side and stuck into her body. The magi roared when another breath of lava hit her side and burned it. Now she was brimming with even more rage.

The black hybrid started to chuckle, **"You may have some high esteem for hunting invalid hybrids like that kid, but all misplaced."** Then he scolded smugly, **"Those were invalids. Duds. Failures. Need I remind you they were failures because they could not perform in combat. You are foolish if you think you can take both of us on by yourself. And as a fool, you shall perish. Or tuck your tail between your legs and flee like the maggot you are; whichever comes first." **

No way was she running from this fight; not until the black bastard was dead. Atlas roared back at the black hybrid, **"So what?! I've handled lots of tough fights before and won them all! This will be no different!"** Hybrids were very fast, but teleporting was much faster as it can go one millisecond. Let's see if these half-breeds could handle her next move. The magi warped on top of the black hybrid and pinned him down under her front foot between her claws. Then she charged up her magic energy to blow down another light beam at him. The black hybrid snarled and retaliated by digging his claws into her foot. The magi winced in response, but she didn't bother to let go. When he tried to lift her foot and let himself move a bit, she pushed back down against him with all the strength of her larger size and weight.

Then the black hybrid started to blow his magma breath at her in a steady stream. The white hybrid came to his side and added his ice breath to his brother's again, hardening the magma to obsidian. They were apparently trying to aim for her throat, but the light beam connected with the obsidian pillar and saved everyone's lives. The white hybrid said, **"Don't think you're going to get it so easy trying to focus us one at a time."** The magi tried this again by casting light lasers at the brothers. The black hybrid continued his own assault with his magma towards her mouth. The white hybrid helped him create more obsidian with his own ice breath united with the magma. The light beam fractured the obsidian, causing the edges creeping towards the magi's mouth to become jagged and sharp. She moved her head out of the way to avoid the sharp black pike. While doing so, she had looked up at the sky and decided to take the fight there. These hybrids had no wings, so Atlas will be able to attack the black one there, while the other one is left stranded on land. She teleported herself and the black hybrid high up in the sky way above the trees.

Once there, the black hybrid was set above her and Atlas below him. The magi soared up towards him with her claw ready to slash at him. But knowing how fast these hybrids reacted, the dragoness would have to get creative to deal damage to him. She focused on him and paid attention for any sudden moves he made. After getting close to him, she teleported right behind the hybrid and made an attempt to swipe at his back. But he twirled around and swung his searing blade out in an arc behind him. The magi yelped when it touched her claw. It seems like he had anticipated her move. Guess she'll have to try to give him a death by falling. The black hybrid adjusted his posture, aiming for the ground where his brother is was. **"Typical typical. Is no one creative these days?"** he asked casually as he fell.

Atlas growled and thought, _'Let's see if this is creative enough for you.'_ Seeing the creature trying to get back to the ground to rejoin his brother, the magi warped herself and the black hybrid to the lab ruins to cut off his support. Then she started flying up as she teleported the black hybrid off the ground and higher up the last altitude she originally placed him. She didn't stop there; the magi kept going and going as she soared higher above in the sky. She had a good enough distance between the hybrid and herself so that he wouldn't attack her with his claws, katana, or his magma breath. When they reached the clouds, Atlas noticed that the air was getting heavier, making it a bit difficult to breath. After going above the clouds, the magi was about to cast down a beam of ice on him to encase him in thick solid ice and make him drop down to his doom faster. But suddenly, she started seeing an image of a familiar boy being pursue by a bunch of angry dragons. _'Oh no, Henry's in trouble,'_ she thought in alert. The tracking spell she placed on him had warned her just in time. Speaking of time, Atlas did promise Axle that she was going to make this fight quick and she didn't want to make him wait any longer.

The magi sneered at the hybrid, **"This looks like a good enough fall for you. I'd stay and watch you die, but I can't keep my friends waiting for long."** She used the tracking spell to bring Henry's location to her mind. **"Ta-ta, half-breed!"** the dragoness said before she teleported over to Henry to save him.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I wasn't sure long these sections and the previous ones from the Firestars and the Vulture Horde would take after Minerva's story in chapter 29 in real life time; so I decided to put her part in this chapter. I really wanted to get back to her and Kathia. Also, I was originally going to have Atlas use her wind powers in the fight as well, until Eveeoni told me that this RP was sticking to only two elements in fights (something that I had been unaware of this whole time). So from now on, unless someone says it's okay for their case, I'm only choosing two elements to fight with during RP battles. Sorry if it would make Atlas and Kathia look a bit dumb storywise, but that's the rules.

But don't worry, they'll be free of these limits once we get to the "Big Event", where everything will go on an alternate path from the RP. After all, there are no rules to when it comes to writing your own stories. And finally, I've removed the part in chapter 30 where Atlas takes her armor with her. I forgot that she was wearing it before the fight, so now I made it to where she accidentally leaves her armor behind.

Gneiss (c) me  
Ohimia and Esko (c) Esko_the_Wolf  
Garin (c) DJVoxel


	33. The Gallion Clan

**Chapter 32: The Gallion Clan**

After saving Henry and fighting off the horde attacking him, Atlas warped back to the lake to get her armor. When she got there, she had found the whole place to be devoid of a single dragon. _'Huh, I guess they've went training in the woods,'_ she thought. Standing next to her armor, she warped back to the spring cave next.

* * *

Aeolus, Kekul, and Cirrus warped into a rain forest. The horde leader looked at his surroundings, noticing a familiar clan emblem he hadn't seen in a long time engraved on some trees. It was the mark of the Gallion clan. The leader looked at the nearest tree's emblem as he thought, _'These woods, is this my clan's new home?'_ After his capture and enslavement, the clan's former territory had been deforested to make way for new buildings, including a factory. It had been another strike on the disaster dragon, knowing that he would never see the beautiful forest of his birth again. This new territory he was in was different compared to the deciduous woods he once lived in, but habitat was just as beautiful with the lush green leaves and vibrant crystals.

His wonder was suddenly interrupted by Juna asking him, _'Who are your best mages with earth magic? This is big enough for a med section of the city. We will need to create the city by detail so nothing is forgotten.'_

Aeolus answered, _'As far as I know, it's Enamora and Sargoth. These two have earth magic.'_ Did Juna just suddenly change her mind about not wanting to train the horde? If so, then this felt like a lucky change. But then again, it was probably meant for Baltia only. The horde leader looked forward to see what she was learning from this later.

Surrounding the horde members were various dragons of different breeds staring at these intruders. A phoenix dragon said to a green dragon with a lilac underbelly, **"Gneiss, we got visitors."**

Gneiss turned away from the tapir he was eating and to see the newcomers. To his surprised, he recognized the disaster dragon. Getting up, he said with a smile, **"Well look who it is. It's my ol' cousin, Aeolus."**

A pink dragon and a few others looked at Gneiss curiously and asked, **"You know this dragon?"**

One of the navy blue dragonesses recognized the name as well and said, **"Aeolus; that's the son of Niccolo, our late chief." **Aeolus looked around at all the dragons in his old home. Some of them were true members of the Gallion clan, while the others were outsiders that Gneiss must have taken into the clan.

A winter dragon beside her asked, **"What about the others? Are they members of the clan, too?"**

**"No they're not," **Aeolus answered. **"Not yet, anyway. These two are part of my horde known as the Vulture Horde. I'll only bring them into our clan after they have proven themselves worthy in our global campaign."**

**"Campaign?"** Gneiss asked as he looked at his relative strangely. **"Are you going around the world to destroy all humans?"** he asked.

**"I am,"** answered the disaster dragon. **"But it's on hold for now as I need to an ancient Rudvichan city of a wicked lord."** He explained how he got caught up in Axle's affairs, starting with the encounter of Dracul up to the present point. **"So now I come to you, my brethren, in hopes of bringing you and the others into my horde. Having two dragons with earthquake powers would be better than one as the both of us will a great deal of damage to our enemies. Together, we will stand a better chance against Dracul's forces and the large army of humans,"** he said, trying to convince the green dragon.

Gneiss thought about Aeolus's proposal as he gave him a fair warning, **"Well Aeolus, I'd sure like to join the horde, but you do realize that I have rebuilt this clan first and have taken leadership of it. Since you are part of our clan, you would have to be subordinate to me. If I were to join this horde of yours, that means I'll have to take control of it."** The green dragon was right about that; he joins and Aeolus forfeits his leadership of the Vulture Horde. This was not something he wanted to happen as he had no idea how the horde would fare under Gneiss or if he would bring it to its downfall. The disaster dragon thought of himself as being the perfect leader as he had the brains and smarts to rule. Luckily, there was a solution to this problem.

The horde leader challenged the chief, **"Then it looks like I'll have to duel you for leadership of this clan. Gneiss, I challenge you to a fight."  
**  
The green dragon smiled in acceptance to the challenge. He said, **"Okay then, let's see what you got!"** The clan and the horde members backed off and formed a circle around Aeolus and Gneiss. The former lunged at the latter and bit him in the shoulder. But the hide that the disaster dragon was biting felt a bit tough. The green dragon grinned and said, **"Nice try, but you should know that I'm part geode, which make my scales tougher.**" Then he swiped at claw at Aeolus's face, causing the horde leader to wince in pain and let go. Gneiss followed up by pinning his cousin down, but then the latter blew his lightning breath at him. The green dragon snarled from the damage he took as he pulled away from Aeolus.

Aeolus got back up as he pushed his opponent away. Afterwards, he blew more lightning at Gneiss and made him fell over in pain. Smoke rose from the burned wounds on the scales that the horde leader's breath had touched. The green dragon winced and a few let out quieted grunts. Aeolus stood over his cousin and asked, **"Give up?"**

Gneiss looked at him defiantly and shouted, **"Never! I won't give up leadership this easily."**

**"I'd figure as much," **the horde leader replied. Then the chief used his magic to raise a slab under Aeolus at a hard and fast pace. Taking advantage of the horde leader's surprise, Gneiss then blew rocks at him and pelted the disaster dragon's head and chest.

**"Grk!"** Aeolus winced from the damage he took. After the rocks stopped hitting him, the horde leader got a headache and started seeing stars in everywhere. He also saw Gneiss jumping at him and pushing him over with his claws on the horde leader's scales. The chief swiped at his cousin's head with the swing of his claws, bringing scars on Aeolus's neck and face. Then the slashing stopped, but just before the horde leader can react, his cousin blew other breath of rocks at him again. The disaster dragon shut his eyes tightly as he got damaged by the little hard stones falling on him. To save himself, Aeolus used his hindlegs and kicked off Gneiss on his underbelly before blowing lightning at him as he got up.

At the same time, the chief also blew more rocks at him. The two breaths went through each other; the rocks pelted Aeolus and the lightning bolt shot into Gneiss's mouth. The electric shock inside the moist cavern intensified the pain as the chief's red eyes went wide and he fell over paralyzed. Aeolus's head spun in both pain and dizziness before his vision finally cleared. He looked at his opponent who appeared to be stiff with smoke coming out of his mouth. Everybody watched Gneiss curiously as they waited for him to get up, but no move was made. A canopy dragoness asked quietly, **"Is he going to get up?"**

The dark purple-winged geode dragon beside her answered, **"I'm not sure. But it looks like he's not breathing."**

Aeolus went over to his cousin and looked down at him in concern. He was also careful as to be prepared for any surprise attacks that may come from his cousin. The disaster dragon asked, **"Gneiss?"** He placed his claw on the chief's chest to feel for his heart. Not a single beat was felt. Aeolus's lightning had stopped his heart. The disaster dragon tensed with shock; he never intended to murder his cousin, especially not in front of the other dragons who saw him as leader. This was bad; if he doesn't do something to save Gneiss's life, then his clan would turn on him and cast him out. His chances at recruitment would be ruined.

The whole clan started to get worried as one of the clan dragons asked the horde leader, **"Aeolus, what's going on? Is he dead?"**

Aeolus remained silent as he calmed down and tried to find a solution to fix this. He recalled humans using things like shock therapy and CPR to get a heart beating again like normal. He decided to try the former on Gneiss using his lightning breath. He turned the green dragon over and blew a small jolt of lightning at the heart. The nerves reacted to the electricity as the chief jumped for a brief second. Then the chief fell back still. Aeolus tried again with a little stronger jolt this time and the same effect happened. So then he moved to CPR. He placed both paws on his cousin's heart and started to push up and down on it. The process worked as Gneiss twitched and woke up from his unconsciousness, much to everyone's relief. He let out a quieted groan and asked, **"What just happened?"**

The horde leader answered, **"Your heart stopped after my lightning breath zapped your mouth. I had to push down on it a lot to bring you back."** Then he apologized, **"I'm sorry for getting you nearly killed."**

**"Is that so?"** asked Gneiss. He immediately formed a smile and said, **"Well then I guess this makes you a winner."** Aeolus felt triumph over being declared the victor of the duel. Now he was leading two groups of dragons as planned. The green dragon looked at his clanmates and told them, **"Everyone, Aeolus is now your new chief. Let's all bow before him."** So the whole clan closed their eyes, knelt down, and bowed to the horde leader.

Kekul and Cirrus smiled with praise for their leader as the latter congratulated, **"Way to go, Aeolus."**

Aeolus smiled with pride at the gray dragon before Cirrus went to heal the two cousins. The horde leader looked at all his clan members and ordered them, **"Rise."** All the dragons stood back up and waited to hear what their new chief would say next. Aeolus turned to his cousin and told him, **"Now Gneiss, I noticed that half of these dragons aren't original members of our clan. If I am to take them into my horde, then I need to know who all of them are."**

**"Oh these guys?"** said the green dragon as he looked at them. Looking back at the horde leader, he explained fondly, **"They're all fellow slaves of mines. We worked together under the same master. They were really swell dragons, so I thought I'd bring them into the clan with me."** Aeolus had also noticed that some of the former slaves were breeds with no special powers. He made a disapproving frown and was about to call out Gneiss for bringing in weak dragons. But then the cousin saw the look and explained, **"Hey, don't get mad. They may seem unqualified for our clan, but these guys make up for strength in other ways that benefit the clan. Come on, I'll show you to them."**

The horde leader followed his cousin to the nearest dragon, who was pink in color. Gneiss introduced him, **"This is Cerise, our baby-sitter of the clan. He's really good with hatchlings and takes care of them while their mothers hunt. He may not look much, but he's pretty endurable. He took out a whole pack of wolves that were trying to eat our young by himself." **Cerise made a small smile and mouthed a "hello".

Aeolus was a bit impressed with the pink dragon, but there was something else he needed to know about him. **"And what are his powers?"** he asked.

**"Just his fire breath,"** answered Gneiss. Now that was certainly not enough to be in the horde. Aeolus would rather keep the pink dragon as the baby-sitter of the clan instead. Besides, he needed someone to look out for his territory while he was gone.

The horde leader said, **"Okay then. Take me to the next dragons, please." **

The two walked over to a pair of male phoenix dragons, who watched them come. The former chief said, **"These brothers here are Sunburn and Dresden. Their powers are as fiery as their personalities."**

**"Hi!"** greeted one of the brothers.

The other one said, **"How are you doing?"**

**"Good,"** said Aeolus simply. Then the cousins went over to a black dragon with a purple face. This dragon appeared to be calm and serious look to him.

Gneiss introduced him in a fond tone, **"This dragon here is my right-hand fellow here named Concetto. He's a soldier dragon."** Aeolus knew about the breed of soldier dragons. Soldier dragons were known for their excellent fighting skills, courage, and strong loyalty to those they served. They would gladly give their lives to their leaders. This breed would be useful to the horde.

The soldier dragon bowed to the new chief and said, **"It's a pleasure to meet you, Aeolus."**

**"Likewise, Concetto,"** replied the horde leader. **"I would be happy to have you in the horde."**

The cousins went on to the next dragon, who was a purple dorsal eating a twig with some berries on it. Gneiss said, **"And this is Dorcus; he's a really strong fire breath on par with a red dragon's."**

**"That's a bit impressive,"** commented Aeolus. Well not really, the horde leader would rather have him stay here at home.

The next dragons they went to were a couple of canopy females and a pair of charcoal-black dragons. The green dragon said to his cousin, **"Aeolus, meet these canopy dragonesses: Legia and Hippie. They're really good scouts."**

**"Hey!"** greeted the smiling dragonesses. One of them was your typical-looking canopy and the other had the light gray color of a wind dragon. For all he knew, she was probably part-wind.

Gneiss continued on with the other pair, **"And these charcoal dragons are Onslou and Umdomiel; they're mates whose powders help to blend us with the darkness."** The charcoals made shy smiles at their new chief.

Aeolus looked at them, feeling charcoals' black powder would benefit the horde at night. He asked his cousin, **"We got quite a few interesting dragons here, cousin. Anyone else?"**

**"Just three more,"** answered the green dragon. They looked to the winter dragon across them and Gneiss said, **"That dragon over there is Lythnara. The dragonesses think that he's a handsome fellow and I can't blame them for it."** The horde leader thought about including the winter dragon into the horde as he had no ice-type dragon in his group. Then Gneiss looked to the last two members and said, **"And finally, we have Plopsy the gold-horned tangar and Fabre the crystal-maker."** The gold-horned tangar was with her hatchling, who was watching Fabre swirling icy wind around the crystal before producing a tiny firework-like explosion above. The entertained hatchling smiled in joy.

Aeolus looked at the crystal-maker and thought, _'Another useful dragon. Having a crystal-maker to produce traps and weapons for the horde would benefit us.' _

Gneiss looked back at his cousin and asked, **"So dear cousin, did you like our new members?"**

**"I do,"** the horde leader answered. **"They are useful in their own ways, but I will only take those with the most useful abilities into the horde. Everyone else is going to stay here and guard our territory while we're gone."** Aeolus rejoined his horde soldiers and looked at the clan. He told them, **"Listen up Gallion clan, now that I'm chief of this clan. I will be taking all of us into my horde, but with a few exceptions. Dorcus, Plopsy, Legia, Hippie, Cerise, and the navy blue dragons will stay here to guard our woods and alert us of any unwanted intruders."** He then told them that they'll be going over to the desert to train and that they must keep their goals a secret from Atlas and her dragon lord friends. **"Now if no one has any questions, we shall be going to the desert now."** The horde leader looked at Kekul and told him, **"Take us back there now."** The magi obliged and warped all the horde members, both old and new, to the desert.

* * *

A bright flash appeared at the interior of the spring cave, revealing the wounded magi dragoness. **"Hey Axle, I'm back! I took care of that hybrid bastard. Sent him way up in the sky so he can fall down dead,"** boasted Atlas at Axle who was now in human form. She imagined the hybrid falling all the way down to the ground where his bones would break from collision of either the hard ruins or the ground. She knew it was easy victory for her as no land-dweller would survive a height like that.

But then the magi's triumph soon turned into anger when she heard that her enemy had survived. _'Let me know when you can actually challenge me you brainless bird. That was pathetic,'_ he scolded over a telepathic link.

Looks like her job wasn't done yet, she needed to go back there and continue the fight. _'Grr! You want a real challenge?! Fine, I'll give you a real challenge,'_ Atlas yelled back telepathically. Then she looked to the dragon-turned-man and told him, **"Axle, heal me now! That damn half-breed is still alive!"**

Axle did not look at her as he replied, **"No, I will not."**

The magi shouted in disbelief, **"What?!"**

Then the man snarled without looking at her, **"It's a waste of energy just to heal and then to re-heal again. I will only heal you once you're done."** He stood up on the edge still overlooking the forest. **"Let me tell you why you won't win, Atlas,"** Axle started to say as he turned his head barely so the corner of his blue eyes could be seen. **"You went in there blindly."**

The magi defended her action,**"Hey, I had to kill that half-breed scum, because he's killed many dragons before. He even told me this himself. As long as he lives, he'll continue to take many victims. Hell, I'll even bet that brother doesn't do anything to stop him."** She assumed the white-maned hybrid was probably involved in these killings, too. Why else would he defend his brother, despite knowing that he's a murderer? Atlas growled and thought, _'I should have tried to kill that one, too.'_

The man turned his full attention to the dragoness and snarled back at her, **"You disregarded those that rely on you by just going in there blinded by rage and anger."** Atlas's eyes shifted to the ground and she growled, not at Axle, but rather at herself for not thinking about him and her nieces. She had done it again. The man continued scolding, **"Also if I remember correctly, you just left as soon as you heard a hybrid try to kill a dragon, who let me remind you, lived. You going off just to take revenge for another against a couple of murderers for that reason means you care, however lack a brain. Let me tell you something; by you blindly just jumping into a fight, you run the risk of losing everything."** Axle took a breath afterwards before he turned away from her. It seemed to have bothered him more than anything else. **"I don't know the whole reason why you went or what for, but you went there to quickly and without help,"** Axle said in a calmer tone than before.

At this point, the magi calmed down into regret for her behavior. **"I-I'm sorry, Axle,"** she apologized. Perhaps, now was a good time to tell her about her history with the hybrids. **"It's just that my sister got killed by fiends like them. Fiends who would bully and torture her at the lab where they were created." **She bared her teeth at the memories of all that Flarina had told her about the lab. Then she stopped baring and continued, **"The worst one of them all was Ramkot, whom those scientists spawned him from her. He and his gang of hybrids were the ones who killed her and left my nieces orphaned. Everyday my sister would tell about her horrid days at the lab and how she suffered from everyone there. Because of that, I hated these half-breeds for what they did. And I started to hate them more after Flarina's death."** She turned around and walked towards the cavern wall where she faced it with her head down. **"We were supposed to live together in freedom after the Spell. Me, her, her mate John, and the hatchlings."** At this point, tears started to form in her eyes. **"I was supposed to meet my new family until those freaks came and took their lives away."** She choked, trying not to sob around Axle, and continued, **"Now because of them, I'll never be able to see my sister again."** After two tears fell down, she lifted her head back up and growled, **"And that is why I'll never forgive these half-breeds for all they've done."** Then she whipped her head around and snarled, **"I'll always hate those little bastards no matter what!"  
**  
The man turned around and went up to Atlas's side with an understanding look on his face. He walked over to her and placed his hand on her leg. **"I'm sorry about what happened, and I'm sorry for what I said,"** Axle sadly said.

Atlas replied, **"Now you know why I had to keep them from killing others."**

The man turned his head to her injured body and sighed a bit. **"Well might as well get to work now. To let you know, this is going to hurt because first I need to remove the ice and the obsidian as well,"** he told her.

The magi told him, **"I will get rid of the ice. You just take out the obsidian."** Then Axle stepped away as she used her fire magic to melt the ice off her body. Then he went back to her and removed some of the obsidian with ease. The other chunks needed removal from a knife he pulled out. Its shiny ruby red blade glimmered in the sunlight, almost looking like a gem, but yet its metal coldness could be felt, almost like ice. The dragoness winced as the blade touched her flesh. She resisted moving as she would make it harder for the dragon lord if she did. Axle took great care in removing the obsidian from Atlas. Once he was done, he placed the knife on the tip of the blade, which stood straight up on the rock, almost like it sliced its way into rock slightly. The man placed his hand on Atlas, letting the energy flow from him to her wounds to heal them, which started to close and heal almost instantly one after another. After she was fully healed, the magi looked like she was untouched in battle. She got up and said, **"Thanks, Axle."**

Axle removed his hand from Atlas as he picked up his ruby knife that was sticking up in the ground. He placed it back where he got it from and turn back to the magi. He asked her, **"Want to train now or simple want to rest?"**

Atlas answered, **"I could use some training in anger management and smarts. Because if I keep rushing into things like that, then bad stuff is going to happen to us."** For the sake of everyone she cared about, she needed wisdom and a cold head to keep from making rash mistakes that would endanger herself and others. She hoped Axle would have some ways to train her in these areas.

The man shook his head at the magi. **"I can't really teach you how to control your anger; that is something you have to learn on your own. The one thing I can say is that each person has their own way of keeping calm. Mine is meditation, while others think of a nice place that makes them calm, like a meadow or a calm view,"** Axle said as he scratched his head.

Atlas was disappointed and thought, _'Well darn, looks like I'm on my own for this.'_

The man continued, **"As for "smarts", there is something called using your enemy's strength for your own. Example, if you used one ice or fire breath against one another, it would have come out different than the one that happened."**

The magi thought about the two hybrids and their magma and ice breaths. She can trick them into blowing their breaths at each other, but then they'd just form an obsidian that would block both ways. That trick probably won't work. But what if it was one-sided as in one brother blowing his breath at another by accident. The hybrids moved fast and had fast reflexes, which would make it easier said than done. If there was a magic spell to beat that, the magi would surely use it. **"Um, right... So what if the bad guy was really fast in both speed and reflexes?"** she asked.

Axle looked a bit puzzled over the question. **"Their strength is speed. Speed; yes it gets more in combat like hits or dodges, but the problem is the energy they use to do so does not recover during battle. It's like a rabbit and a turtle. The rabbit is faster than the turtle, but once it hits its limits, it rests for a long time to recover its energy, while the turtle still have all its energy and can still keep on going farther than the rabbit could. So what you do is use their own speed against them and let them wear themselves down,"** he said. **"There is one thing you must know. Because they are fast, it means they are more than aware of their limits, which means you must drag the battle out by enduring their hits or even blocking them. Is there anything else?"** he asked.

Getting an idea of what to do next time, Atlas smiled confidently and answered, **"Nah, let's just rest for now."** She went over to the cliff of the cave and heard noises above her; it sounded a bit like fighting. She flew up to the cave above to see what was going on. There she saw that Garin was training Ohimia to help her become a better fighter so that she can defend herself from fiends like the hybrid brothers next time. The magi smile and thought, _'Well ain't that nice of him.'_

* * *

Aeolus and the others returned back to the desert, where the horde was still sparring. The disaster dragon told all the dragons, **"Vulture Horde, desist training at once!"** The dragons stopped sparring and turned to listen to their leader. Once all eyes were on him, Aeolus announced, **"Everyone, I have returned with our newest recruits, the Gallion Clan."** The horde looked at the clan with a bit of interest. One of them commented on how Gneiss kind of looked like the horde leader. Aeolus told them who the clan members were before asking, **"So how are your spars going, everyone?"**

Yopple nodded and said, **"Aye, sparring is going well."**

Just then, Aeolus heard Drakor telepathically speaking to him, _'Aeolus, that big cassare you brought in. He was sparring with Eatorn, but then he overdid it and wounded him badly. Worse, he didn't seem to regret his action at all.'_

The disaster dragon frowned in dismay from hearing the bad news and hearing how Yopple was careless. He asked, _'That Yopple; I told everyone not to each other like this. I'll speak to him soon. But first, how is Eatorn doing now?'_

The ember dragon replied, _'Fine; he's just been healed by Hewey.'_

Relieved, Aeolus said, _'That is good. It makes glad we have a healer in the horde.' _But even though Hewey had saved the day, Yopple still needed to be disciplined for his actions. The disaster dragon made his way over to the cassare to give him a scolding.

Yopple craned his neck and welcomed the newcomers, **"Welcome, new members. Or is it too early for introduction?"**

Gneiss smiled at the cassare and said, **"Nah, go ahead. I need to know who we're fighting alongside with."**

The cassare stood straight up and introduced himself, **"Anyways, my name is Yopple. You are?"**

The green dragon answered, **"I'm Gneiss, the chief of Gallion clan until Aeolus won that title in a duel we just had."**

The conversation stopped as soon as Yopple noticed the frown on the horde leader's face. **"Is there something wrong, sir?"** he asked in concern.

Aeolus was about to talk to him about the incident with Eatorn until Juna came over and told him in an uncaring tone, **"Well, now that I found you. Now I need to see if you are even worthy of the Shadow Wind training. Recommend you bring five to seven 'friends' along with you and come to the cave that is close to here."**

**"I'll be right there,"** the disaster dragon said to her. Then the dragoness left for the closest cave, which seemed to go quite deep and was quite dark down its cave mouth. Looking back to the cassare with a disapproving look on his face, he scolded, **"Yopple, I heard you wounded Eatorn during the spar to the point he got injured that he needed Hewey's care. I told you and the rest of the horde to fight lightly. I can't have an incapacitated dragon in the horde and I need every single one of us fit and able for our goals. Do you understand?"**

Yopple simply nodded and spoke, **"I was fighting lightly, sir. I apologize for any injuries."**

Aeolus looked at him suspiciously; what Yopple said seemed to have contradicted Drakor's story. But he didn't decide to press matters on the issue. Instead, he gave him a stern warning, **"Well make sure this doesn't happen again. Because if it does, I will take action against you."**

The cassare replied, **"Yes sir."**

Then the horde leader turned back to his horde and spoke to them, **"Vulture Horde, Juna is going to test some of us to see if we are worthy to be trained. I will pick six of us to go with me."** Then he looked off into the crow and started to call out the names, **"Bam and Baltia, you two are in." **The navy blue dragon went through the crowd with the dark myst following him and went to his cousin. He was eager to see what kind of testing they'll get. Aeolus looked to the others behind him and said, **"Yopple, Gneiss, Concetto, and Selenite, you are also with me."** Selenite was another clan-born member; she is a geode dragoness and Gneiss's mate. As for Yopple being picked, Aeolus thought to dismiss him from sparring should he hurt another dragon in his absence away from the horde. Plus, having the cassare around will let the horde leader see what kind of dragon he really is.

Yopple smiled and got up. **"'Tis a pleasure, sir,"** he simply said.

Then Aeolus told the horde who their next sparring partners are; the Gallion clan members were included. With the dragons now sparring against their new partners, the horde leader told his chosen group, **"Let's go."** He led them to the cave that Juna was in.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I'm finally glad to get this chapter done. And now I'm going to update you all on what's going on regarding the story and the RP. Recently, Esko the Wolf has been rather slow in making new posts to the RP and this is due to his Ipad being taken to be upgraded (I think). Though for some reason, he's active on the other RPs. So because of Esko's absence, chapter 33 is going to take a long time to finish since I need Yopple to have Aeolus's story progressing. So until I think Esko's quit the RP for good, chapter 33 is going to be on hiatus. Sorry for the disappointment, readers.

Gneiss, Concetto, Cerise, Sunburn, Dresden, Dorcus, Legia, Hippie, Onslou, Umdomiel, Plopsy, Fabre and Niccolo (c) me


	34. Vine Dragon Attack

**Chapter 33: Vine Dragon Attack**

After a short while, Minerva finished writing down the second article and uploaded it to the website. The next thing she did was check her email for the flyer that her boss sent her. She opened the new message and printed 15 copies of the flyer in color. With that done, the woman proceeded to start searching for how to run a business. She looked at the many links on the search engine to see which one would have the best knowledge for her. While busy, she heard sounds outside the window, almost like someone was climbing on her house. She looked at the open window and saw Ronan coming in through it. **"Hey, I'm back again. Find anything useful for the business?"** He inquired as he leaned down to look over her shoulder.

Minerva shook her head and answered, **"Not yet; I'm just getting started."**

The man commented, **"This stuff is beyond me, I'm too used to wilderness to understand this technology."**

The woman replied, **"Yeah, technology can be kind of confusing. But it will be easy, once you know how to use them."** She clicked on a link to a website page with 10 steps to starting a business. The topic of step 1 was to write a business plan. She clicked on that link it and took her to a page with several links to sub-articles like "Funding Request", "Company Description", "Market Analysis", and "How to Make Your Business Stand Out".

Ronan looked at the screen and was just puzzled. **"I'm going outside to practice. Be ready to leave later for our date."** He smiled at her as he went outside.

**"Okay, I will,"** Minerva said without taking her eyes off the computer. She clicked on each sub-article and read through them to get details on what she needed to do.

* * *

After reaching her home, Kathia thanked the coachman for the ride and went to the mansion. She opened the door with the house key and went inside to see her maid vacuuming the floor. The woman saw the girl had came home and greeted,**"Welcome home, Lady Kathia. Are you hungry? May I cook you something to eat?"**

The girl declined the offer, **"No thanks, Mrs. Merryweather. I have some urgent business I need to take care of. It'll be quick before I return to Sundown."** She walked past the maid and went up to her father's room. She took the message book off the nightstand to get his list of phone numbers. She dialed the phone numbers of the first man on the list and waited for him to pick up. When he did, Kathia said to him, **"Hello Mr. Edward D. Greene, I have some good news for you. Rittevon Construction Company, Inc. is going back in business!"** She told him all the details about why she needs the company and told him to call all the employees, so that they can have their jobs back.

* * *

Once the group got to the cave, Aeolus saw the silver dragoness twisting a stone between her fingers and said to her, **"Juna, I'm here and these are the dragons that I have chosen."**

Then Baltia flew up a bit next to the leader and hovered. **"I'm Baltia,"** she added. Aeolus looked at the dark myst; she appears to certainly love to hear herself talk. He also disapproved of her speaking out of turn. It was rather rude in his opinion.

Juna glared at the pygmy and snarled at the horde leader, **"You're late, Aeolus. You also brought the energetic as well."**

Aeolus apologized, **"I apologize; there was somebody I had someone to "tend to" for a bit."** He was referring to Yopple, but the silver probably wouldn't get it.

The group followed her farther inside the cave where Juna yelled out towards them, **"A lord from Shadow Wind does not train any; only those that past a test first. Your little test is to try and hit me. For each hit, I'll let a seventh of the horde train under mine and Mekarth's wing."** Then she went a bit further ahead of them before she turned and yelled, **"You only get one hour, so have fun."** Then she ran at full speed down the cave before vanishing inside it dark depths.

Aeolus looked at his group and said, **"Looks like she's using the darkness to her advantage. We'll have to think of some way to get us through."**

Gneiss offered his suggestion, **"We could always use a fire breath to light the way."**

Bam added with an eager smile, **"Yeah, like mine!"**

But the horde leader shook his head and declined, **"No, she will find us this way and move away from us. We need a more creative plan than that."** Then he looked at the group and asked, **"Can anyone see in the dark?"**

**"I can't,"** said the navy blue dragon.

**"Me neither,"** said the green dragon with a slight head shake. His geode mate shook her head, too.

Baltia rolled her eyes. **"What do you want to see?"** she asked, her white eyes still visible despite the blackness, reflecting the tiniest amount of light to visible levels. She looked around and asked sarcastically, **"Rocks in the corner? I can't see in complete darkness, but any amount of light and it's fine. So, anyone got a match?"**

Aeolus frowned slightly annoyed as to why Baltia asked such useless questions. Did she not pay attention to anything that was said or was she just simply trying to get under his scales on purpose? Either way, the horde leader didn't bother to answer. He looked at Yopple next and then asked, **"Yopple, can you see in the dark?"**

Yopple nodded and answered, **"Yes sir, I can see in the dark. You need light?"** He shot a bit of fire ahead of himself.

The leader answered, **"No, just lead us through the cave and tell us if you see Juna or any obstacles."**

**"Yessir,"** the cassare said quietly, before he trudged on.

The group followed Yopple through the darkness. Their tails held on to each other so that they don't lose one another along the way. Walking through a place where you can't see anything was a bit unnerving, but Aeolus trusted the cassare to lead them safely. The horde leader used his nose to smell for Juna's scent in case she was nearby for them to attack. Thinking that Yopple might unwittingly announce the silver's location to the group aloud for her to hear and move away, the horde leader told him telepathically, _'Yopple, if you see or smell Juna, then tell it to us telepathically.' _The cassare said nothing in response and continued to lead the way.

* * *

Atlas heard something snap from below; a tree might have gotten broken just now. She turned around and looked down at the forest to see if Spinx was there. She watched the forest intently, waiting to show that it was who she was thinking of. Within a minute later, a pained roar was heard from below the trees. The magi sensed a problem arising and murmured to herself, **"Sounds like trouble." **She took off and flew down to the woods. On the way, she heard the roar again for a split second. When she reached the scene, the magi found Axle in dragon form, a vine dragon, a woman who was lying dead on the ground.

Axle's fangs have been sunk into the vine dragon's neck. Blood dripped form the white dragon's mouth as the vine tried to pull out of Axle's bite. The white dragon was also one that was injured as well. Vines were ran though his body as well, blood dripping from the tips. However, Axle seemed to not notice at all. His eyes had a murderous look in them, almost like he was going to kill the vine dragon. The vine's eyes however looked like he was in fear. Atlas was surprised to see Axle looking like a savage beast; somehow it was strange to see him like that. She wondered what the vine dragon did to piss him off like that. It was probably related to the dead woman here. The magi descended to the ground and asked, **"Axle's what's going on here?"**

The vine dragon's eyes grew even larger, when he found out the dragon lord's name. **"Axle Incarus,"** was all he could get out. Axle let go of his bite and replaced it with a claw to the chest. The vine dragon fell to the ground with a thud. The vines in the white dragon's body got pulled back out as Axle soon staggered a bit before he fell himself.

Atlas went over to his side and asked, **"Axle, what the hell just happened just now? Are you okay?"**

Axle's breathing have become more rapid and more shallow now. Blood flowed from the wounds he have sustained from his fight and they did not seem to be healing, but getting worse. His talons gripped at the ground in pain as his claws gashed the ground. Tears drip off his snout as he changed to his human form and was curled in a ball. **"It... burns,"** Axle said through his sobs as he started cringing. Even in human form he was still bleeding as his white shirt now started to turn red from the blood.

**"AXLE!"** the magi shouted in intense worry for the man. She ran over to his side and transformed into her woman form. She carefully knelt down and touched his arm. Not only was he shaky, but he also felt cold as well. **"Damn it,"** she whispered. The poor guy was hurt badly and Atlas felt sorry for him. She thought about cauterize his wounds, but she didn't want to hurt him anymore than he was now. She needed to get him some help quickly, but first she wanted to make sure that his magic was still functional. **"Axle, calm down. Can you heal yourself?"** she asked.

The man's blood started to pool around him. His skin tone started to change from it tan to a lighter pale color. **"I... can't... stain..."** Axle sound weaker than a few seconds ago. He cringed in pain even more.

The woman knew the man was dying and that he needed help now. **"Hang on, Axle! I'm going to take you back to the horde!"** she cried frantically. She remembered them having a healer dragon who helped Axle last night. If anyone can save the dragon lord, it would be him. Grabbing a hold of the man's arm, Atlas cast a tracking spell to Hewey and warped over to Solomos.

* * *

After Kathia called the other executives about her plans, the girl hang up the phone and made a plan to buy more spell books so that she and the people of Sundown would have more magic spells to learn. The girl went downstairs and said to her maid, **"****Goodbye again, Mrs. Merryweather. I'm going over to the bookstore, and then the sports store, and then I'm going to go back to the camp."**

**"****Alright, take care, Kathia,"** the maid said to her. Kathia left the mansion and walked down the street to the bookstore. Hopefully on the way, she would find some people who were interested in being away from dragons.

* * *

Atlas and Axle appeared in a desert next to Hewey and a crimson flare he was sparring against. The Vulture Horde dragons around them looked to Atlas and Axle as one of them said, **"Humans!"**

A wasp pygmy looked at his leaf pygmy partner and asked, **"What do we do?"**

Tavurth growled and telepathically said to the nearby horde members, _'I say we kill them while the humans lovers aren't looking.'_

The canopy dragon turned his attention and told him, _'Tavurth, they'll smell human blood on us if we kill them.'_

The flower pygmy beside him reasoned, _'We can't! There's a dragon scent coming from that female. Not only that, but look closely at the male. He looks just like Axle when he turned human. It must be him and Atlas.'_

The brute dragon looked at the man past his blood and immediately recognized him. _'Oh these guys! Well I guess we better sit here then.'_

Atlas looked at Hewey, who was surprised and unsure of what to do. The woman cried, **"You're that healer dragon from last night, aren't you? You gotta save Axle now! He got into a pretty bad fight with a vine dragon and now he's dying."** With a desperate plea, she cried, **"Please, save him!"**

**"Axle?"** asked Hewey. After he recognized the scent, he became relieved to know that they were dragons. **"Okay, I'll help. Stand aside and let me do my thing."** The woman got out of the way to let the healer dragon use his magic to heal all the wounds.

After Hewey healed Axle, Atlas waited for him to wake up. But then she quickly realized that something was wrong. The man wasn't breathing at all. **"Axle?"** she asked, sounding worried.

The healer dragon knew what was going on and with a heavy heart, he told her, **"I'm sorry Atlas, but Axle is dead."**

The woman threw her head up and asked in shock and disbelief, **"What?!"**

**"It's too late for him..."** he said. Shaking his head, Hewey continued, **"And there's nothing I can do to bring him back."**

**"Damn it!"** Atlas cursed in frustration. **"Just when we got back to Rudvich..."** She looked to the ground and murmured, **"Stupid vine dragon!"** Then out of her guilt and frustration, a fire aura suddenly appeared around her and the woman became to let out an angry scream. She threw fireballs at the ground around her, not hitting any dragon around her. **"I should have gone there faster!"** she yelled. If she had flown to the woods the moment she heard the first roar, then Axle wouldn't have died. She failed herself, she failed his family, she failed Strider, she failed Shadow Wind, and most of all, she failed the dragon she sworn to protect. **"Gah! Can't I do anything right?!"** she yelled.

Suddenly, she heard a telepathic voice in her mind saying, _'Calm down, there's a chance that you may still save him.'_

Atlas stopped throwing fireballs and asked, **"Huh? Who said that?"**

**"Me,"** said a magi dragon, who was part-magma, approaching her from behind. The woman turned to him and he continued, **"When the clan leader fell dead and breathless, Aeolus brought him back to life with just the simple trick of pushing down on his chest."**

**"Really?"** asked Atlas. **"That's how his life got saved?"**

**"Yes, I was there to witness it,"** the magma magi said. **"And it was pretty unbelievable to me and my friend, Cirrus. You should give it a try, miss. It may save his life."**

At this point, Atlas was ready to try anything to save Axle's life, even if it was crazy. **"Okay, I'll do it,"** she said. After her fire aura disappeared, the woman awkwardly tried to get down, but ended up falling over. _'Damn, I need to learn to work on how to sit in human form,'_ she thought. She pushed herself up into a squatting position and placed her hand on the man's chest. She started pushing down on him repeatedly.

**"No, not like that!"** the magma magi told her. **"I think you needed to push down on him one per second. That's how Aeolus did it."  
**  
Then a spring dragoness nearby said, **"And try breathing into his mouth in between pushes, too. I saw a human do that to another before when she was unconscious."**

This advice sounded more awkward to Atlas, but she's willing to try it. So as she pushed on his chest once per second, she put her mouth on Axle's and breathed down into it. She repeated this procedure until he would wake up. It was several attempts at CPR before a pulse was felt in the man's chest. The woman stopped and brought her head away from him. This was soon followed by a slow rise in his chest as natural breathing, but he still remained pale a bit. His breath was shallow and seemed short. There was a flick of bronze strips going across his left side of his face from his eye heading towards his neck, almost like a claw marks. This seemed to restore his skin tone back to a tan skin tone and his breathing return to normal as well.

Atlas became happy and thought, _'It worked; he's alive!'_ For a few minutes, she watched him breathing slowly and thought, _'Come on, Axle. Wake up! We got a mountain to go to.'_ Then his eyes opened slowly and revealed their royal blue treasures. He looked at the woman for a second and sat up a bit. His eyes look like they were puzzled by some sort of events that have just happened. Atlas smiled joyfully and cried, **"Axle, you're back!"**

The magma magi smiled as well and commented, **"Looks like the trick saved the day again."**

Axle looked a bit confused and asked, **"Um, did I miss something?"**

Atlas decided to fill him in on it, **"You were half-dead, Axle. So I had to get you healed by the Vulture Horde's healer dragon and then bring you back to life." **

A honeycomb pygmy telepathically said to Axle, _'She had to do mouth to mouth.' _The man looked surprised and smiled at the woman.

Then he looked around for a second before asking, **"Where are we at?"**

Atlas answered, **"I don't know, but all I can say is that we're in a desert."**

A grumpyblack dragon stepped forward with a harrumph and said, **"Alright, are you two done with this dramatic reunion?" **Atlas and the other dragons turned their heads to him.**"I understand that one of you just woke up from clinical death and the other was near mental breakdown, so I'll cut you some slack. Now, I would like to know some things here. One, and that's addressed to all of you..."** He looked around at everyone in his sight. **"Who are you guys exactly? Two, I would like to know why are you here. Yes, I know that you were training, but I would like to hear a reason for that, thank you very much."**

An albino dragoness looked to the 'humans' and told them through telepathy, _'I'll talk to him.'_ Then she turned to the black dragon and said to him, **"We're the Vulture Horde. We're all training to learn how to fight an evil dictator's army."**

Her sister, another albino dragoness, held her wing out toward the 'humans' and said, **"These two over there are Axle and Atlas. Axle's the lord of a city called Shadow Wind and Atlas is his companion. Axle and his family got usurped by a wicked dragon named Dracul. So we're going to help him reclaim his homeland."**

The man looked to his companion and said, **"We can go back now Atlas, whenever you want."**

**"I say we do it now,"** said the woman. **"It's been what? Nearly an hour and we still haven't taken any steps towards Trident Mountain. We need to go now." **Turning to the healer dragon, she said, **"Thanks again for the help! You guys do your best on getting stronger, you hear?"**

Hewey smiled and replied, **"I got you; and good luck on your journey, you two."** Then Atlas teleported herself and Axle back over to Northeast Rudvich at the woods where the vine dragon laid dead.

* * *

Atlas looked at the vine dragon for a bit. She brought up a question concerning it, **"So Axle, about that fight with weed-bum here. What the hell happened to make you two want to scuffle?"**

Axle look at her for a brief second before he turned his eyes back to the dead woman. He grabbed his dagger from the ground, which was cover in the vine's blood. He came up to the dead woman and kneed down. He placed the dagger back where he kept it, and then scooped up the woman's head and placed his against hers. His forehead was placed against hers as the sound of his natural tongue sounding more like it had sorrow in his voice. This took about two minutes before tears could be seen falling on the girl's cold face. After Axle was done, he pulled out a pale white scale, a golden coin and a small knife which was tucked in his right boot.

He clapped his hands around the woman and folded her hands around the white scale, leaving the middle open. He placed the gold coin in the small opening, then took the knife to his palm that have placed the golden coin and sliced it open, letting the blood drip on the coin and fill the small dip in the scale. He wiped his hand on his pants and slowly let the woman's head down.

Axle turn his attention back to Atlas's question. **"She was a dear friend of mine and I raised her from the age of three. She was family to me and now she gone."** He sound depressed at the fact the woman was dead. **"He chosen his action and I chosen mine. I will hold the regret of taking a life."** Tears ran down his face. He turned back around and kneed to the body of the woman. His head hung down as tears kept on falling.

Atlas felt sorry for his terrible loss and thought, _'Poor guy, he's just like me. We both lost someone we care about and avenged them. But he really does value life. If I had been in his place, I wouldn't have felt bad about taking that vine dragon's life. Such a kind soul; perhaps this is the kind of lord Shadow Wind needs.'_ Then suddenly, she heard a distress call in her mind. The woman tensed with alert and thought, _'Trouble again so soon? Now what?'_ Then she asked the man, **"Axle? Did you sense that?"** There was something peculiar about the distress call. It felt like it came from a relative of hers, but who? Can't be Flarina as she died a few days ago. And her nieces were impossible as they were in Solomos right now. It probably must be an ancestor, cousin, or descendant of some sort; most likely the latter.

Her question got ignored as the man's hand clinched to the ground as if something just hit him. He got up off his knees. **"Dracul, I will never forgive you. Your responsible for Valinora's death and now you have hurt my family. I will kill you,"** he said out loud and his voice was filled with both anger and sorrow, pain and savagery. He sounded as if he was almost promised he would. Atlas was surprised by this sudden outburst. **"Atlas let's go, I have wasted enough time away from home,"** Axle said and the corner of his eyes meant something else, almost like he was in that state he was in when he fought the vine dragon. He turn and walked towards the mountain in a fast pace.

A little bit disturbed, the woman replied, **"Uh... Okay?"** She followed him through the woods as they went on their way to Trident Mountain. While walking, her thoughts went on about the distressed dragoness. _'I feel bad right now. I don't like leaving others in danger, especially my family, but I just don't know who called me and what they look like,'_ she thought. If she's never seen that dragoness before, then using the tracking spell and teleporting to her was pretty much impossible. _'Damn it!'_ she thought, ridden with guilt. She hoped the dragoness would forgive her for abandoning her. The only thing she could do right now was save Shadow Wind and hope that she'll be able to rescue her afterwards.

* * *

Pretty soon in the group's search, Yopple announced, **"Juna up ahead."**

Aeolus frowned in dismay; he had told Yopple not to say things out loud. He was about to call him out through telepathy on it when he smelled Juna's scent. A quick realization told him that the dragoness would have found them out through scent alone. So perhaps it was unless to blame the cassare for blurting. The horde leader decided to forgive him and said telepathically, _'Yes, I can smell her.'_ With Juna nearby, he told the group, _'Everyone, be ready to attack.'_

Bam replied to him, _'Got it, cous!'_ Aeolus tensed his breath pipe to prepare himself to breath out lightning.

The group heard the soft drop of Juna landing and then her laughter. Aeolus commented, _'She's here. Attack her in the direction you heard her.'_

Yopple responded, _'Yes, sir.'_

The horde leader blew out lightning at where Juna was standing and the other horde member did the same with their breaths; and in the cassare's case, a spell consisting of scalding water torrents. Aeolus held back most of his voltage, so that he doesn't electrocute her. Then by accident, the disaster dragon got burned by Bam's fire breath. Aeolus roared in response to the pain before the navy blue apologized, **"Oops, sorry cous!"**

The light of Concetto's flames revealed Juna in halfling form for a second before the cluster of attacks hit, causing an explosion happen which then gave rise to smoke. The singeing smell stung Aeolus's nose a bit, but he didn't care about that now. After the smoke quickly cleared away, the woman told them, **"If that was all, you are all in some deep trouble."** Then they smelled and heard her moving before, her voice echoed through the cave, **"Do you really think small little things like that will work? Because you are highly mistaken."**

Yopple cursed under his breath; even the horde leader was a bit disappointed as he thought, _'We missed.'_ Then he got clawed on his snout and chest by her. He gritted his teeth in pain before he tried to smell her out for where she's at. Upon finding the direction of the scent, Aeolus decided to go with a different tactic this time. He telepathically told the group, _'Bam, Baltia, Concetto, hold your fire breaths. That light will just give her an opportunity to dodge. Yopple, Gneiss, Selenite, you three attack at where you smell her out.'_

Yopple replied calmly, _'Yes sir.'_

Everyone else said, _'Got it!'_ Then the green and geode couple blew out their rock breaths at where the Juna's scent came from. The cassare shot scalding water jets in there as well. He shot them like machine gun bullets, not ceasing fire. As they heard the sounds of rocks hitting the ground and water splashing, Juna yelled, **"You're not learning, are you? Breath weapons and magic is not really that useful here in the dark. It makes it ten times harder to hit your target than it would be in daylight."** Then to Yopple, she continued, **"What was you even trying to do, cook crabs? Well let me tell you something; I'm not a crab or anything you can eat and I will bite back."**

After learning that the attacks didn't hit the halfling, Aeolus quickly found out why. _'Of course, she's related to a black dragon. How else could she see in the dark?'_ he thought, knowing she must have inherit the nocturnal vision of a parent of that breed.

Gneiss frowned and said, **"Oh great, she can see us."**

**"Apparently,"** the horde leader commented. Then he told the group, **"Everyone, we can't remain blinded in the dark like this. We need to be able to see as well, so that we're on even grounds with Juna. So by all means, give us your light."** So the fire-breathing dragons blew and held fires in their mouths to use as torches in the dark.

Looking around for Juna, Bam telepathically said to the group, _'So where is she?'_

Aeolus looked at the spot where the rocks and water hit that was shown by Concetto's light. Knowing that the halfling was nearby in that area, he telepathically the soldier dragon, _'Concetto, keep your light in that direction. I know Juna's around here.'_

_'Yes sir,'_ the soldier dragon replied.

The horde leader looked at the cassare next and said, _'Yopple, you're with me. We're going to get Juna.'_

The cassare replied with an almost evil grin, _'You need light, sir? Got it.'_

Aeolus said, _'Yes Yopple, that'll be helpful.'_ So after the cassare cast his fire aura to provide a great amount of light, the horde leader walked over to the lighted area as he telepathically told Bam and Baltia to put light in that direction as well. _'And make it adjacent so that we can have a wider area to see,'_ he told them.

_'Got it, cous!'_ the navy blue replied, putting his light area next to Concetto's.

Baltia, however, had her light wandering around everywhere, not caring to stop in its place. _'Ooh, do you want it here, here, or there?'_ she asked while flying around. She accidentally got too close to her leader's head and had the bright light of her flame nearly blind him in the eye.

The disaster dragon turned his head away and winced as he closed his eyes shut. He was getting annoyed with the dark myst's high jink. Biting down to avoid yelling too harshly at her, he growled, **"Just look at the rock in the light."**

**"Okay,"** said Baltia. This she did as she was told. So Aeolus and Yopple went back to approaching the rock. As they got closer, the scent grew stronger. The horde leader suspected that Juna was hiding behind the rock. Getting prepared for whatever ambush there was, he carefully went around the rock. He had his claws tensed to slash and his tail ready to hit in case she came at him. The light from the cassare's fire aura revealed the halfling. But before Aeolus could even react quickly, the halfling had chucked a small rock into his eye. The horde leader threw his head back and shut his pained eye as he roared from the stinging hurt.

The group saw the woman running past then. Concetto tried to swipe at her with his claw, but he missed as she made a mad dash deeper in the cave. Aeolus turned his head to see her go and yelled, **"After her!"** So the dragons chased after Juna with the light from all the fire users helping them to keep sight of her. Gneiss and Selenite blew out rocks at her as they ran. But as the horde got closer to her, the halfling decided to turn around and run right towards the group. Some of the dragons got confident smirks thinking that she was stupid for going the other way and believed that this time they were going to get her. But Aeolus suspected something else at hand. _'What is she doing?'_ he wondered about her tactic. Gneiss tried to slam his paw down on the halfling, but missed as she slide right underneath Yopple.

After Juna was behind the cassare, Bam saw her and thought, _'Now I got you!'_ He blew down a fireball at her, but she jumped to her feet and leapt over it. Then she landed on the navy blue's head. **"Yowch!"** he cried before he felt her get off. With there no longer having fire in Bam's mouth, the visibility in the darkness got narrower.

But thankfully, Concetto was able to keep his attention on the halfling and let his light show her being on the ceiling. Juna taunted the group, **"Come on. If you had the brains of a real dragon, you would have came up with a better plan than chasing me deeper in the cave."**

Without turning his eyes off her, Gneiss said telepathically to Aeolus, _'You know, I'm tempted to use my earthquake, but that would just bring the whole cave down on us.'_

The horde leader agreed and replied, _'Which is why we need to come up with a better plan.'_

_'Got anything in mind?'_ asked the green dragon.

Aeolus began to think about what he could do to get to Juna. Running after her didn't seem to work at all; it would be easier if they could somehow get to her in an instant. That's when he thought about Yopple's teleporting ability. The cassare dragon had a fire aura on himself; if he could warp himself over to the halfling and catch her in his flames, then this would count as a hit. The horde leader said to his cousin, _'We use Yopple.'_ Then he formed a telepathic connection with the magi casssare and said, _'Yopple, I need you to warp yourself up there to Juna. And I don't mean on spaces around her. You must be touching her after teleportation. That's the only way we can hit her for good.'_

The cassare nodded and replied, _'Yes sir. In fact...' _The way he said it sounded like he had an idea. He dimmed his fire for a few seconds, so there was a bit of flame on his scales. Then he teleported up there to the halfling.

**"Shit!"** Juna shouted as the flames scorched her. She bounced quickly from where she was at before Yopple blasted his fire aura to full force. Afterwards, she landed on her back.

Seeing the scorch mark on her, Gneiss smiled triumphantly and exclaimed, **"It worked!"** The cassare wore a devilish grin on his face. Aeolus and the rest of the horde were glad they managed to successfully land a hit on the halfling. But they knew it wasn't over yet; they still needed to hit her six more times before the whole horde could be trained. For good measure, Yopple reached fast to grab her and shot more flames out of his mouth. But Juna managed to get out of the way and ran past the attacking dragons who tried to get at her with claws, teeth, and tails. She vanished untouched into the shadows. The group chased after her deeper into the cave, quite far down.

* * *

After reading all of step 1, Minerva wrote down on a notepad paper the supplies she would need for Ronan's business such as chairs, a table, dummies, wooden swords. She even thought of hiring a web designer to make his website and a graphic designer to make the banner and ads on paper. She clicked the back button and went to step 2, which was how to get business assistance and training. Thankfully, they were free and they were on web videos. But there were many of them and each of them probably took like several minutes to watch. Minerva let out a sigh and thought, _'Oh boy, this is going to take a while.'_ She clicked on the first video link and listened to the explanation about the types of local assistances like regional offices, district offices, and disaster field offices. Thankfully, it only took 2 minutes to watch. Then she went to another video, which also took a very short time.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I was originally going to make this chapter mostly about the horde's task to land many hits on Juna (it's still not over yet). But since it went about an hour long in RP time, I decided to add in parts of Atlas's story in there, so that it doesn't get confusing when Raven goes to speak with Aeolus after the test.

Edward D. Greene (c) me  
Valinora (c) LordDraco8967  
Raven (c) TheTron852 (a.k.a. UberCatsr on DeviantArt)


	35. To Get What We're Looking For

**Chapter 34: To Get What We're Looking For**

As Kathia went on her way to the bookstore, she noticed by the local diner stood three men who looked grumpy about something. She heard one of them say, **"What the hell was that last night? I can't believe they put that disgusting hippy firework out there."**

The girl raised an eyebrow curiously and wondered, _'Disgusting hippy firework?'_ She wondered what sort of display had been shown last night during the festival's fireworks.

The second man, who was fat, mustached, and wore a gray fedora, said,**"Yeah, talk about an insult to all those who died in the massacre. They think we can simply forget what happened and start being friends with those damned scalies? Hell no; they're barking up the wrong tree!"**

The third man, who was scrawny with a thick red bear and in dirty overalls, said, **"Dang right, you are. Them Aquarian scalies are tryin' ta brainwash us. But we ain't fallin' fer that."**

Kathia smiled with enthusiasm and feeling joyful that she found potential citizens, who thought the same way she did. Going up to the men, the girl said, **"Hello, don't mind if I cut in. I heard you guys are feeling upset with those dragons as much as I am."**

The scrawny man shook his fist and said, **"Dang right, we are! Those scalies are messing up our lives here."**

**"Yes, I know how you feel,"** said the girl as she nodded in agreement. **"But I got some good news I would like to share with you."** She looked around in both the air and on the ground to see if any Aquarians or those loyal to them were nearby before she could speak more. When no dragon was in sight, Kathia gestured for the men to come closer to hear. They brought their heads down to her face and she whispered, **"There's a city being built far from Windfall and it's going to for humans only. So none of that civil rights for dragons crap."** She grinned and continued, **"We're also teaching people how to shoot arrows and cast magic, so we can defend ourselves for these scalies."**

The men were all excited as the mustached man said, **"That sounds wonderful! Where is it at?"**

The redneck man said, **"I could sure bring mah stuff and family and move on over there."**

Kathia didn't want them to make any rash decisions before they get their hopes dashed, so she warned them, **"Well that's great and all, guys. But we don't have any houses yet; the place is just a bunch of tents right now."** Then she assured them, **"But rest assured, the Rittevon Construction Company will be building houses over there and I'll be teaching them magic spells so that we can get the process done faster."**

The short-haired man looked a bit skeptical and asked her, **"But wait a minute, didn't the Rittevon Construction Company close down a few days ago?"**

**"It did,"** the girl said with a slight nod. She smiled and continued, **"But I brought them back together! My father's company must go on, no matter how many jobs those dragons steal from us."**

**"That sounds wonderful,"** said the mustached man. **"Hope this city out there gets built, because I can't stand living in this messed-up hellhole any longer."**

The short-haired man and the redneck both nodded as he said, **"Yeah, me too!"**

Kathia got out her cell phone and told them, **"And I'll be the one to let you know we have houses for you. Just give me your phone numbers and I'll call you when it happens."** After the men told her their phone numbers and their names, the girl typed them down in her contacts list. **"Okay, thanks guys! I hope you all have a good day."**

**"You, too!"** the men said. The girl left and continued on her way to the bookstore. She reached the place and entered the store to search for important spellbooks. Kathia went over to the same section in the store where she found the beginner's magic guide book. Since Mrs. Merryweather was using it to learn spells for housework, Kathia decided to buy another one so that she can learn whatever spells she haven't learned yet. She also thought to buy a variety of different spell books, each with a different subject, for more magical knowledge. After picking up the beginner's guide, Kathia picked up a book on alchemy, healing magic, a book on runes, shapeshifting, folk magic, and ceremonial magic. These books sounded useful to her cause, but to make sure, the girl flipped through each page in the book to see if they had really good spells. They were all great, so she decided to get them. The girl went to the cash register and used her father's credit card to pay for the books. After getting her receipt and bag, the girl left the bookstore with her purchases. Her next stop would be the weapons and equipment for the camp.

* * *

The chase took the horde dragons to a pool of water where Juna did a blind jump and landed right in it. The group stopped at the edge and wondered what their next course of action would be. _'Great, now what?'_ Aeolus heard Gneiss asked.

Bam had an idea and suggested, _'Hey cous, why you sap her the water with your electric breath?'_

The horde leader replied, _'That's what I'm about to do, Bam. But thanks for the idea.'_ But that wasn't the only part of his plan. He needed back up as well, so that his attack don't fail. He told the whole group, _'Everyone, I need you all to get close to her and attack her from the air. But don't touch the water as I'll breath lightning into it. Also, one of you needs to block her sight of me so that she doesn't see what I'm about to do.'_

_'With pleasure,'_ Yopple calmly stated, then faced the water as the rest of the group responded as well.

The disaster dragon gave the order, _'Now attack!'_ The group, save for the flightless Selenite, flew at Juna with the rock-breathers blowing out rocks and the fire breathers holding their flames and resorting using only their bodies as weapons. Aeolus put himself behind Yopple as his large size would be able to provide coverage. The cassare superheated the water with his magic to the temperature of fire. As the group got closer to Juna in a circle with Concetto right above her, Aeolus blew down his breath at the water. He held some of his voltage back, so that he doesn't electrocute her to death on accident. The water got electrified, but Aeolus heard no scream from the halfling. The splash he heard before his attack must have meant the heated water had hurt her, but would that count as a hit? Juna rolled her dark eyes as she change to her full dragon size. The horde halted before she dived back into the now steaming water, sending water up in the air as she seemed to be deep in the water. The horde got wet by the big splash, which also doused the flames in mouths of the firebreathers. Bam and Concetto spat out the water and renewed their flames. The horde looked down at the water; it was evident that the silver dragoness was not going to come up anytime soon. Aeolus felt confident about his victory; he managed to get the silver dragoness in the right place to get her for good. He prepared his lightning breath and brought the voltage up to where it would be enough to knock her out.

Baltia shifted to aim herself at the water and cried, **"Ooh, I'll get her!"**

Bam saw what the dark myst was about to do and shouted, **"Baltia, no!"** But it was too late, she dived at the water. Fortunately, Concetto was quick to grab her before Aeolus blew out lightning on the water. The bright light of electricity flashed across the water before the horde leader stopped and let it fall back in the darkness. The horde waited for Juna to float up; it seemed like a few minutes have passed and she still did not surface up from the water.

A few more seconds passed before bubbles raised on the far side of the water as now steam started to rise up from the water. The horde knew that it was Juna coming up, but some of them knew there was something wrong. Aeolus gritted his teeth and thought, _'__No, she's still active.'_ The dragoness suddenly shot out of the water right up to Bam, almost looking like the lightning did nothing to her, as she went to extinguish his flame. Then she swiped her paw with the talons extended lighting quick and dropping back in the water. The horde leader saw his cousin cried, **"****Bam!"** Concetto and Gneiss grabbed the navy blue dragon by the wings and tail before he would fall into the water.

Then Aeolus heard Juna taunting him with an explanation as to why his attack didn't work. _'Aeolus, you may be smart, but you must realize that water is not truly conductive without certain minerals and how deep it is and how large it is. Your lighting trick barely managed to get half way deep, so please try again,'_ she said. The horde leader let out a quiet growl in response.

Bam rubbed the wound that the dragoness had left him with. Gneiss looked at the disaster dragon and asked, **"****Aeolus, what do we do? We don't have much time left."**

The horde leader looked down at the water and planned out his next attack. Immediately, he told his horde, _'__Stand back, all of you.'_ The group flew away their leader and watched his next action. Aeolus used his magic to create a tornado and send it into the water to create a whirlpool. Hopefully this would draw out Juna. After the vortex appeared, he told the cassare, **"****Yopple, follow me."** Then they flew down into the vortex. The horde leader told the others, _'__Concetto, Gneiss, leave Bam and Baltia with Selenite. These three will watch the coast for when Juna comes out and attack her there. Meanwhile, the both of you will stay over the waters and strike when you see her.'_

_'__Got it,'_ said Gneiss.

_'__Understood,'_ replied Concetto.

Bam said eagerly, _'__I'll get her back, cous!'_ Aeolus held lightning in mouth, getting ready to strike when needed.

Upon going down further into the whirlpool, Aeolus was taken by surprise from Juna's sudden rush out of the water. He blew out his lightning breath without thinking as he needed to attack quickly. Then he quickly got tackled by the silver dragon and pushed into the water. The vortex pulled him back and swung him around. As that happened, his little lightning trick tagged Juna not once, but four times because of the vortex's rotation, causing the lighting to bounce off the walls of the water. She felt the pain of the lighting as it hit her each time, causing a painful look on her face.

The disaster dragon spat out the water he accidentally swallowed and cried, **"Yopple, get me out of here!"** The cassare sighed before he concentrated on the water and worked on slowing down the vortex. As the vortex got weaker, Aeolus rose above the surface and flew to where he could see Yopple. The disaster dragon thanked him, **"Thanks Yopple!"** He then looked around for Juna to see where she was at and if she had taken a hit from his lightning. She did from the few scorch marks he saw on her. Then he saw the water rising quickly. The horde leader sought to fly up before he gets caught in it, but the water had beaten him. The disaster dragon held little breath he had as his eyes got stung by the liquid around him. Now not only did he have to reach the surface quickly, but he had to deal with the darkness preventing him from seeing most of his surroundings. Luckily, the light from Concentto's fire showed where he needed to go.

Aeolus swam towards the light until he reached the surface, where he just floated there. Gneiss and Concetto looked down at him as the former asked, **"Aeolus, what happened down there? Did you get Juna?"  
**  
The disaster dragon answered, **"I did; a few times."**

The green dragon smiled excitedly and said, **"Alright! Now a lot more of us will be trained."** Then he started looking around for a bit. He turned back to his cousin and asked, **"So where is Juna?"**

Aeolus looked around for the dragoness. Earlier, he had seen her get thrown by the water into the wall. But where was she now? He had no idea. He looked to the soldier dragon and asked, **"Concetto, can you find her?"** The soldier dragon looked around for the dragoness until he gave up and shook his head in response. The horde leader figured out, **"So she must be underwater then."** He got out of the water and hovered. Then he flew away from his subordinates and cast another tornado into the water. If his vortex drew out Juna before, it can do it again. He waited for the dragoness to be seen. The vortex opened up the center of the water again, revealing a silver dragoness near the center as she laid against her side. She appeared to be unconscious. Now that she was spotted, Aeolus needed help getting her out, since she was a lot bigger than he was. Pulling her out would be too much for the horde leader to bear. Turning towards the cassare, he told him, **"Yopple, warp Juna out of the water now." **

The cassare nodded and said, **"Yessir."** Then he concentrated his spell and warped Juna out.

The dragoness was now on the ground beside Bam, Selenite, and Baltia. The three dragons looked at her, thinking that they have finally defeated the dragoness. But to make sure that all hits had gotten to her, Bam bit on her tail for a bit and then let go. **"I think that's all seven hits now!"** he said. Aeolus and the others regrouped and looked down at Juna, waiting for her to wake up. Baltia scooped up some wet dirt out of the water and smeared it on Juna's face in shapes of a mustache, eyeglass, and buck teeth. Bam snickered at the dark myst's work and commented, **"Heh heh, nice!"**

Juna still seemed unresponsive. It seemed she was dead, however her chest was still rising and falling as her breathing was stable. She was just out cold. Seeing as how the dragoness won't wake up, Aeolus said, **"I guess this concludes our test. Vulture Horde, we have won! All seven hits have been done to her."**

Baltia piped up in amusement, **"And her face got messed up!"**

The disaster dragon ignored her and said, **"Whatever, the whole horde can now be trained. I will announce this to the others when we get outside."** Looking to the cassare, he said, **"Yopple, teleport us outside."**

Yopple nodded his head and grunted, **"Not too much of a distance, should not take much energy. Yessir."** Then he focused on the group and started his teleportation spell.

Gneiss, Selenite, and Concetto all felt like being thrown up into a weird space. **"Whoa!"** the mates cried, while Concetto let out a silent roar.

* * *

The group was now outside the cave at the heart of the village. But now the sunny sky that used to heat up the desert was replaced by dark gray clouds above. But thankfully it wasn't raining or anything. Apparently, the horde got tired of the heat and had the gray dragons bring up the clouds to use as shade. Aeolus looked at Gneiss and Selenite and told them, **"Take Juna over to the cave behind you. Let me know when she wakes up."** The two dragons nodded and took the silver dragoness over to the chieftain's cave to rest.

Yopple grinned and then looked at the ground. He asked, **"So, shall we start training once Juna wakes?"**

Aeolus replied, **"If she allows us to be trained, then yes."**

The others went to rejoin and the horde outside the village. They saw that half of the horde were still sparring, while the other half were taking a break. The disaster dragon was pleased to see them being persistent in their training, but didn't show it on his face. He thought, _'They're still going at it. Good!'_ But of course, they must train against the same sparring partner all the time. Plus, they needed a break after being in that dark cave for nearly an hour. So Aeolus announced to them through telepathy, _'Vulture Horde, I have returned! Now I need your attention on me.' _The horde stopped sparring and the leader waited until all eyes were on him. Then the leader said to them, **"Vulture Horde, we have completed our test with Juna and have landed all hits on her, so that all of us will receive training."** Roars of cheer sounded among the crowd; they were all glad that their leader had accomplished this. After the roars died down, Aeolus continued, **"But of course, we have yet to hear her decision as she is currently unconscious and will need rest until she wakes up. Speaking of resting, I believe this horde needs a thirty minute break before we resume training again with different partners. So without further ado, everyone take a rest now and review your training. Think about whatever tricks you learned and figure out what you could have done in your fights."**

The horde happily started resting and went to mingle with their friends. Fakoo and Omdomiel went over to their leader. The former of the two said to him, **"Aeolus, we found a survivor of the Eternal Wind clan."**

The disaster dragon asked them, **"Is it Rina?"**

Omdomiel answered, **"I'm not sure; he never gave us his name."**

So it's not Rina then; which means another member of the clan had survived. Aeolus asked him, **"So what did he look like?**"

Fakoo described, **"He was a black dragon with a cut in each of his wings. He wanted to ask you if you've see anybody from his clan."**

The horde leader replied, **"Well what a coincidence, because another survivor had been looking for her kind, too."**

The charcoal dragon's eyes grew a bit wide with interest and asked, **"You saw another one?"** Then he smiled and continued, **"Well in that case, he'll be glad to know you saw her."**

Aeolus then asked, **"That he will be. Now where is he?"**

The albino answered, **"He left; I think I saw him go into the village. But I'll contact him and let him know you're here."** Then she used telepathy to contact the black dragon, _'Our leader's back. He's with us now.' _Then remembering how he was unaware of telepathy, she instructed,_'And also, to use telepathy, you must picture someone in your mind and use your thoughts to communicate with them.'_

The dragons waited for the Eternal Wind clan member to meet them. During their wait, the dragons sat and talked amongst themselves, sharing stories about their past days and what the new Gallion clan was like. It took a while until they saw a lone black dragon approaching them; it was most likely the Eternal Wind clan member. He announced his presence, **"Alright, I'm here." **Then he looked around the crowd and asked, **"So you said that the leader is here now. Where is he?"**

Before Fakoo could say anything, Aeolus answered for her, **"That would be me."** He rose up off the desert ground and went to the black dragon, who was almost half his size. The horde leader noticed the cuts in the wings, which looked similar in fashion to the way Rina had them. He said, **"You must be other the survivor from the Eternal Wind clan I've heard about."**

**"That I am,"** the black dragon said and nodded. **"Seeing as others didn't hear my name yet, I guess now is the time. The name's Raven, the frontal warrior and subsequently the head of the watch duty. Not that my job in the clan matters anyway, seeing as the village is almost gone now, along with the others,"** he added with a harrumph.

Aeolus responded with a simple **"Mm-hmm."**

After hearing the response from the leader, Raven said,: **"Now, I heard that you've met a surviving clanmate of mine. Who is he? Or she?"**

The horde leader answered, **"Her name is Rina; we last met in this village a few days ago."**

"**Rina?... Oh, her,"** replied the black dragon, without much enthusiasm. **"Dark-blue, almost never smiles, very brutal in combat, has a weird obsession over that multi-colored cube humans call 'Rubik's Cube?'" **Aeolus had seen a small cube with multiple colors on it a long time ago, but he never got to hear its name. Perhaps that was the Rubik's Cube that Raven mentioned.

The horde leader continued,**"I have no idea where she is now, but I can have one of the magi dragons take you over to her if you wish."**

Raven replied,**"I still have some unfinished business here, it won't take too long. I'll come back here after I'm done with it."**

Aeolus patiently replied, **"You may take your time." **Raven nodded, turned around and headed back to the village as the group watched him go.

After a while, the black dragon sprinted back towards them. He slowed down as he got near and calmly walked toward the leader. **"I am done,"** he huffed, once he stood before the disaster dragon. **"Whenever you are ready."**

Aeolus telepathically contacted one of the magi dragons, _'Kekul, come to me. I need you to teleport an Eternal Wind clan member over to one of his clanmates.'_

The magma magi dragon immediately appeared via teleportation and spotted the stranger. **"That's him, right?"** he asked while looking at Raven.

Aeolus nodded and answered, **"It is. Now let me show you who to take him to."** The horde leader sent Kekul an image of Rina, whom the magi used his tracking spell on.

After memorizing the dragoness's appearance, Kekul said, **"I got it."** Then he looked at Raven and concentrated on the mental image of the dragoness. After he channeled enough magic energy, he teleported the black dragon over to his clanmate. **"There, it is done,"** said the magma magi.

* * *

Kathia walked down the side and looked around for a horse carriage past walking people and the hulking masses of dragons. Since the dragons' bodies blocked the view, the girl had to look underneath them for any signs of the carriages like wheels and hooves. It took her 20 minutes to finally find one in front of a fast food restaurant where a couple was dropped off to. Kathia ran over to the carriage quickly before someone would get to it first. She took out her coins and held them to the coachman as she shouted, **"Sir, I need a ride!"** The coachman took the cash and let the girl onto the carriage. She told him to take her to the northern gate of the city and the coachman made the horse take them there. During the ride, Kathia took out the book on folk magic to see what her people can learn for their well-being. The carriage finally reached the gate and dropped Kathia off there. The guards opened the gate to let her out and the girl went back to the car.

As Kathia got in beside the driver, the woman greeted her, **"Hi, welcome back! Did you buy everything you need?"**

**"I sure did!"** the girl replied with a grin. **"I bought a bunch of spell books so that we can all learn all the magic we can. And I even bought the weapons and equipment Jason needs."**

The driver sounded happy, **"Oh that's great! I'm sure the others would be amazed when you show them."**

**"They sure will be!"** Kathia guaranteed, picturing the people's amazement. The car drove off on its way to Sundown.

* * *

The woman went on watching video after video, while skipping those that weren't important to Ronan's cause such as one about women's business for example. After a while of watching all these surprisingly short videos, she went on to read the next steps. Step 3 was about choosing a business location, which was already done. Step 4 was about the business loan programs. Minerva read the sub-articles there to see how the process was done. Everything looked complicated and she was probably going to get bored trying to read it all in step 4. But no matter how tiring it was, the woman needed to force herself to read through all of these. Maybe if the boredom was too strong, then she could take a quick break of either walking around for a few seconds or looking at web images she searched for a bit. While going through these sub-articles, Minerva found a "Fine a Lender" link that would tell where the nearest lender would be in Windfall. She clicked on the link and put in the location data in the search engine to find the results. She received a list of banks and financial groups. She wrote the names down on paper, so that she could look up their addresses later. Once, she was done with Step 4, she went on to Step 6 which was registering a business name. Come to think of it, Ronan hadn't thought of a business name yet. She wondered what kind of name he would call his fighting school. She decided, she would discuss this later after she was done with her research.

Step 7 was how to get a tax identification number. Minerva read up about the EIN and the requirements for it. There weren't going to be any employees, the school wasn't going to be a corporation, they weren't going to file tax returns, she wasn't sure if they were going to need a Keogh Plan, and they weren't going to be involved with any organizations. So she figured they didn't need an EIN. She skipped Step 7 and went on to Step 8, which was registering for local taxes. Soon, Ronan entered the room and approached the woman from behind. He asked curiously, **"How's it looking so far?"**

**"I'm over halfway done with how to start a business,"** Minerva answered him. **"I only got step 8 left and then two others."** The woman looked up the taxes for Windfall to see how these things worked. After she clicked on the first link in the article, it took her to another website with several links. She turned to Ronan and said, **"This is going to take a while."**

Ronan gave a frustrated look and the woman knew that that even he thought it was taking too long. **"Well, you have a better chance of understanding this than I do. Need any help with anything?"** He asked, offering his aid.

Minerva knew it was now the right time to ask this certain question. Turning away from the laptop, she asked, **"Yes, Ronan do you know what you're going to call this school of yours? We need a business name for this school."**

The man shook his head and answered, **"Hmm, no I've never thought of a name for it. Any ideas?"** He sounded curious as to what her answer would be.

Minerva shook her head and answered, **"No not yet."** Then she suggested an idea, **"Hey, why don't we think together?"** With both minds at work, they'll have an easier time getting the perfect name. The woman started to think of names for his school. The first one to come mind was, **"How about Ronan's Fighting School?"** It may have sounded bland, but she felt she could try suggesting that name first before she thought of more creative ones.

Ronan shook his head and said, **"Sounds too prideful." **Then he got an idea and suggested, **"Hey, what about, Dragon's Fist martial arts?"**

Minerva smiled and replied,**"That sounds better."** Then she thought about rearranging the name a bit to see if it would sound better than it is. **"But what if we called it 'The Fist Dragon's martial arts'? I mean we know martial arts involves using your fists, so there's no need to call it 'fist martial arts'."** Another name immediately came up for her and it was called, "Southwest Martial Arts". She figured it would reference where Ronan came from. But before she could suggest it to him, she wanted to know what he thought about "The Fist Dragon's Martial Arts."

The man shook his head again and said, **"To put Fist before Dragon doesn't sound right unless you make it 'Fist of the Dragon' or something like that."**

**"Oh okay,"** the woman replied. Then she raised a finger and was about to suggest 'Southwest Martial Arts' until a new name suddenly popped up. Then she said, **"What about Blazing Tiger Fighting Academy? That sounds even better, right?"** If not, she'll have to suggest the other name she was thinking of earlier.

Ronan thought it over for a bit before he suggested, **"Hey, what about, 'Blazing Tiger, Soaring Dragon Academy'?"** He smiled at the thought at of his idea. **"Tigers are patient and ferocious. Dragons are wise and deadly. Good, no?"** he chuckled.

Minerva giggled back and thought about how good the two names sounded. **"Yes they are, but I think it would be better to keep the name of the school short instead of having two names in it. Soaring Dragon sounds like a pretty unique name,"** she complimented. **"But I think Blazing Tiger sounds more attractive. It's got that energetic ring to it,"** she said.

The man nodded with a smile and said, **"What the heck, why not. Blazing Tiger Martial Arts."** He glanced at the clock as if he was checking the time before he looked back at her.

**"Then let's call it that,"** Minerva said. She was proud they could get at least this much done today.

Ronan nodded and asked, **"Alright so what's next? Got the name done, and I'm sure you've already covered a lot of research, what else is left?"**

**"Let's see..."** said the woman as she turned back to her laptop to look. There were two more steps left: one about obtaining business license and the other about understanding employer responsibilities. **"There's two more steps, but it'll be done soon,"** she assured as she clicked on the link to step 9.

The man thought about what else they'll need for his business. **"Hmm, we'll need equipment. We'll need to find someone who can help us get the necessary training equipment. Wooden dummies, weapons, weights, etc.,"** he went on listing a few things.

To help him on where to get them, Minerva said, **"We can get some of them at the sports store, a Hayanese shop, and order some online. I know a sports shop over at one of the shopping centers."**

Ronan nodded and replied, **"Alright, sounds good."** With a smirk, he continued, **"Again, thanks for this Minerva."**

As he left her room, the woman returned the smile and said, **"Anytime, Ronan!"**

* * *

**Author's Note: **Wow, it's been a month since I last uploaded a Dragon Rage chapter. The reason for this delay is because Esko, Draco and UberCatsr (a.k.a. TheTron852) all had school and exams to study for and do. Now with Aeolus out of the way, now I can work on other chapters and get them done quickly. But first, I need to do an anniversary story for Jass on DeviantArt. It probably won't reach 9 pages as I've delayed too much on it, so I'll just work with what I can put on it.


	36. Azera the Mercenary

**Chapter 35: Azera the Mercenary**

The car had gone over a quarter way to the Sundown, when Kathia looked out the window and saw a man dressed in black confronting a wounded silver-haired swordsman with a a dark myst pygmy next to his good leg. Behind the swordsman were two black dragons with red eyes. The curious girl wondered what was going on over there and told the driver, **"Megan, stop!"**

The woman stepped on the breaks and halted the car. She looked to the girl and asked her, **"What is it, Kathia?"**

The redhead pointed at what she was seeing and told the driver, **"Look at that; there's two people fighting each other and I'm not even sure who's the dragon hugger or not, and which's dragons are slaves or wild ones. I think we might have another citizen for Sundown, if none of those two are hippies."**

Megan seeing how badly injured the swordsman was, felt wary and suspicious about the dark-clothed man and warned, **"Or we may have stumbled upon a deranged murderer trying to kill an innocent man. I don't know if we should trust this person, the guy in the robes."**

Kathia told a counter-point, **"How do we even know which one's the good guy or not? For all we know, the other guy could be the culprit here. Look, how about you drive the car out of their sight and I'll stay here and watch what happens? Besides, we're like 1000 feet away; a safe distance. We'll be alright."**

Megan still wasn't convinced that the girl was going to come out okay. **"Are you really sure about this?"** she asked.

**"I am,"** the girl assured. **"And don't worry, I can defend myself. After all, I do have magic."**

The woman sighed and said, **"Alright fine, but if it gets starts to get dangerous, then please come back to the car. Don't fight them."**

**"I got it,"** Kathia replied. She took the folk magic book with her and got out of the car. As the vehicle drove away, the girl hid herself behind a tree and peeked over the edge to watch the fight. While doing so, she smelled a horrible stench that seemed to belong to a rotting corpse. The girl squeezed her nose to block out the stench. Both men stood in ready positions as they faced each other with their blades drawn. The silver-haired man moved his foot slightly and with a quick motion, he threw his sword into the air. The glow of the sword blinded Kathia for a brief second. The swordsman took that second to pull his bow from around his shoulder, notched an arrow and fired. The arrow hit with a soft thud, but not at the target he was aiming for; one of the black-scaled dragons had blocked the arrow. The arrow was lodge in his leg as blood splattered against the ground. There didn't seem to be a reaction from the dragon at all; either the attack didn't seem to faze him at all or the girl was too far away to see the reaction on his reaction. She thought it was most likely the former.

The black-robed man came from behind the black dragon as his opponent grabbed his sword that he had thrown in the air. The swordsman blocked the other man's sword as the blades met each other with their metallic ring. The black-robed man pushed away from his enemy and kicked him hard in the side. The silver-haired man grinned in pain as he grabbed his bleeding side. Kathia noticed what appeared to be white shards on his side; where had they come from? The silver-haired man slung his bow back over his shoulder and blocked another of his foe's sword slash, but he still got a gash across his cheek from a bone shard. The silverette punched his opponent in the chest, but it did not seem to affect the other man very much. The black-robed man just grinned even more devilish as he moved his sword so it came across the silverett's chest, leaving a slash and making him stagger back a bit. Kathia moved in about a few hundred feet closer to get a better look at the situation, but as she got closer, the awful smell became stronger. _'Just where is that smell coming from?'_ the girl wondered.

Once she got to where she needed to be, Kathia heard the black-clothed man say, **"You're just a hollow of your former self, so you're not worth my time."** Then suddenly, he got clawed in the back by the dark myst pygmy that jumped on him. It ripped at the black-robed man for a few seconds before being grabbed by him. Then he threw the pygmy right at one of the dragons, who clawed at it in the air and left a gash on its lower body as it hit a tree. Its blood splattered against the tree, which oddly had a shadow poking out from behind it. The silverette charged at his enemy, but got no more than a few feet until a tail hit him father down the street, causing him to tumble a bit as well. There was a blood trail following him from his wounds as he went about ten feet from where he was standing. The silverette was trying to push himself up off the ground before the same black dragon, that attacked him, pressed down on him with its paw to keep him down. The other dragon stayed where it was as the black-robed man walked over to his enemy and said, **"Not even worth watching you die ether."** He turned on his heel and started to hum a very dark and devilish tone. He snapped his figures as a sky drake came from the ground, cracking it wide open. Kathia stood there dumbfounded with her mouth open and her eyes astonished at what she just saw. A sky drake underground? That couldn't be right; air-type dragons or drakes weren't known to live underground. Well unless she had somehow missed out on this info on the breed. The girl made a note to herself to read up on sky drakes later.

The black-robed man got on the sky drake as the black dragon removed its paw from the silverette and took to the air. It was soon followed by the other dragon and then the sky drake with its master on its back. The silverette had a pool of blood that was starting to form below him as he pushed himself off the ground. He placed one knee in the blood and pulled his bow out to notch an arrow. As the black-clothed man and his dragons were getting fizz and farther away, the air around the arrow started to swirl with energy and heat as the tip started to glow brightly. The silverette pulled the bow-string back now and aimed carefully before releasing the arrow. Lightning flowed around the arrow as it flew to its target, but it did not hit anyone as a small black crow got in the way of the arrow. The bird exploded on the impact of the arrow and the energy of the magic, sending gore in every direction. Kathia looked at the result in amazement and thought, _'Oh my gods, that is so cool! Imagine what I can do to dragons if I had a spell like that.'_ She thought about going over to the silver-haired man to get him to teach her how to power up her arrows, but first she would need to help him. The silverette fell to the ground and dropped his bow as his last effort to even kill his foe was in vain. The other man laughed at the silverette's failed attempt and disappeared into the sky. The girl took out a bottle of blessed water and went over to the injured man, asking, **"Hey, are you alright? I just saw you fighting that other man. What happened?"**

The man looked weak and hurt from his injuries. But he did manage to say one thing though in a voice of shallow whisper, **"Azera."**

**"Azera?"** the girl asked; she wondered if the dark man who attacked him was named that. But Kathia decided not to press on that, because right now it looked like the man was dying from blood loss. So to save his life, the girl held her right hand, which glowed in a light green aura, over his wounds and began to channel healing magic energy into them. One wound at a time would be healed by her healing spell. Once she was done with that, the girl opened the bottle of blessed water and told him, **"Here, drink this. It'll help you recover."** Then she brought the bottle to his mouth and poured some of the water inside his mouth to heal any internal injuries he may have suffered.

The man's eyes slowly open up and looked to the girl before him. He asked in a loud whispered, **"Why did you heal me?"**

Kathia put down the bottle as she answered, **"Because I want to learn from you. You know that magic arrow spell thing you did at the guy who attacked you? I want to know how to do that, so that I can teach everyone in my new city, so that we can liber... uh I mean hunt down animals in style. Yeah!"** Good thing she stopped herself from revealing her plan, otherwise this stranger who might be a loyalist to the Aquarians would rat her out and then things would go bad. Putting on her cute girl masquerade, Kathia held her hands together, smiled and flashed her eyes as she asked, **"So would you be a gentleman and teach this young lady like me how to use that spell, please?"**

The man pushed himself up into a sitting position with great effort and simply looked at her with a blink stare. **"Arrow spell? You mean that thing I did with the arrow? To be honest, I don't know how it happened or how I did it. It just happened,"** he said as he simply looked at the ground. **"It's just a blare to me."**

Kathia raised her eyebrow at him and asked, **"You don't know?"** She was puzzled as to how a spell like that could suddenly come out of nowhere without the guy learning it first. **"Are you sure you didn't try to channel your magic energy into it or think about doing that?"** she asked. She remembered how she managed to spread magic flames over her body when she was up against the vine dragon, despite the Burning Touch spell being limited to just the hands. But perhaps that was because the girl was trying to exceed the limit. The man here however seemed to have done his arrow spell by pure accident.

The silverette looked at his hand and said, **"That's right, I do not know. I can say though, that power was more powerful than the fire spells I can use and almost pure energy."** He sounded almost as if he was about to pass out from the lack of energy.

Kathia wondered if developing her fire magic energy would eventually lead to being able to cast the spell. She thought about bringing this man back to camp, so that he can help teach her fellow settlers how to cast the spells he use and maybe in turn, help him to learn that arrow spell. But she still needed to know what he thought of dragons first. **"Well maybe you can try to give it a shot at casting that spell to see if it can be controlled. You know? Channel lots of magic energy into the arrow and see if you can pull it off again,"** the girl suggested. If her theory worked, then she can try practicing that spell herself.

Then the man pointed to the dark tiny dragon, whose breathing was shallow. Its bleeding has slowed down a bit. He asked, **"Mind me asking, but is that dragon with you?"**

The girl had been meaning to get to the dragon, so that she can test his allegiance. In a haughty tone, she scoffed, **"Oh that lizard? No. It's just some wild scaly. Speaking of which, it looks like it's going to die. I say we put it out of its misery, don't you agree?"**

The swordsman looked back at her and shrugged his head. **"I could care less if it dies or live; but unlike you, I don't kill the weak, which includes dragons,"** he said.

Seeing as how the man didn't seem to care much for the pygmy, Kathia took the man to be okay after all. Sounding admired, she said, **"Ah, so you like to fight the strong, huh? I'm sure you'll find plenty of strong dragons to fight in the future if you were to come with me."** Then she told him about Sundown, **"I have a settlement at the base of the mountain, where we're going to build a city. We wish to take back our real city from those horrid dragons that burned down our home and turned it into a medieval mess that they took over. But to do that, we're going to need to learn magic and how to fight."** Then she explained about herself, **"I have a friend who can teach archery and I can teach magic, but I'm still a beginner at it. But you, my friend; you seem to be more experienced than I at combat. Perhaps, you will be willing to help my people learn to slay dragons? I can offer you money to do the work. I'll have you know that I'm a rich girl. So what do you say? Will you join me?"**

The man shook his head and calmly replied, **"I don't train killers. All I do is solo missions on my own and that is that. Yes, I may be a merc, but I don't train people. I thank you for the offer, but I must refuse and I don't think you can pay for my services."**

Kathia made a grumpy frown; it felt like the swordsman was patronizing her. She thought with a bad temper, _'Don't underestimate my finances, just because I'm young!'_ Then she put on back a calm face and said, **"Well okay, I understand. Well if I ever need you, can you tell me where I can find you?"** She may not be able to use him as a fellow teacher, but perhaps she may need him to raid supplies out of cities, buildings, and caves that may be occupied by dragons.

The mercenary shook his head and said, **"I have nowhere to really call home. Plus-"** He stood up this time and grabbed his sword. He removed it from the loose ground that has soaked his blood. **"I will find out what he knows,"** he continued, sounding like he meant it. He began to walk away from the girl before stopping and picked up his bow. **"If you need me, look southeast, because that's the direction he went and I will follow,"** the man said to her before taking his leave. He picked up the arrow, which seemed to not have damage on it even from the impact. Then he picked up the dark myst by its tail. **"You might be useful for later reason, or you might know something as well,"** he said to the dark myst as it seemed to have passed out.

**"He?"** asked Kathia. **"Wait, do you mean Azera? Is that the guy who attacked you? That's his name, right?"** Maybe if the mercenary won't train her people, then perhaps his attacker will. Perhaps even his slaves, if that's what these dragons were, could be useful for her society in building Sundown.

The man stopped and turned his head to the girl, to whom he snarled at, **"No, that's my name. And if you value your town and life, I recommend not to follow or even try and find him. He's a necromancer and those dragons are already dead. He does not care who he kills as long as he finds the dragon he is chasing."**

Kathia was mesmerized by what she just heard about the attacker. **"A necromancer?"** she murmured to herself. That was a wizard that brought the dead to life and controlled them, right? That would explain how the sky drake went underground. The power to control dragons after they had been slain would be something useful to her cause and pretty amazing, too. The girl had to learn how to do that, but she couldn't count on Azera's attacker to teach her since he was dangerous. Perhaps she may learn how to do that from one of the books she purchased. If they had nothing about it, then she can always go back to the book store to get a book she missed or look up it up on the internet.

Then the mercenary asked, **"I do have a question, where exactly is Sundown located?"**

The girl answered, **"Do you know where Trident Mountain is? The camp is at the bottom and it's in the direction facing Windfall."**

Azera nod his head to the information. **"I thank you for the information, now I will be on my way,"** he said as he started to walk away. **"And if you need to contact me, just squeeze the arrow over there,"** He said as he pointed to the arrow over in the dirt that he shot earlier. The arrow was undamaged and looked brand new as well. The tip was a shiny silver green and the wood was dark. **"Each of my arrows are connected to each other and will react and let me know if someone if trying to break it,"** Azera said as he walked away with the dark myst pygmy.

**"Okay, I got it,"** the girl said. Then Kathia looked at the arrow again and thought, _'Hmm, I wonder if this is magic as well. I'll add that to my list of what-to-learn.'_ The girl went back up the slope and got to the car.

Megan looked at her and asked, **"Did everything go alright down there?"**

Kathia answered,**"Yeah, everything's fine. I saved some guy named Azera, who told me he was a mercenary. The other man who attacked him was an evil necromancer."**

**"A necromancer, well that sounds scary,"** the driver commented.

**"Maybe,"** the girl replied. Then she smiled, **"But not if somebody uses necromancy for good."**

**"For good?"** Megan asked, intrigued.

Kathia nodded and answered, **"Yeah! Like after you kill a dragon, you can control it to your will and make it do everything you want to do. A dead dragon would make a much better slave than a live one. No free will to turn against you at any time."**

Megan liked the idea and said, **"My, that sounds good! Makes me wish we thought of that earlier."**

**"Yeah, that could have saved us all those lives back then,"** the girl said, thinking about the night her parents died.

* * *

Minerva read the last two steps and finished off writing the notes to starting a business. After that, she clicked the back button to return to the search engine website and typed in "how to run financials." She read the entire article and got the process understood. Now with everything she needed done, she went to go look for Ronan. Minerva found him in his room. He sat in the window sill staring out blankly. He looked somewhat peaceful, but also appeared as if he was reminiscing. He kept triggering his hidden blade, which was attached to his wrist, and retracting it over and over. That kind of weapon looked strange to the woman; perhaps it was something made in the southwest region. She took her mind off it for now and said to the man, **"Ronan, I'm done reading up everything we need to do business."**

The man looked back to her as he retracted the blade one more time. **"Alright, so what's next?"** he asked. **"Do we need to go talk to people now?"  
**  
Minerva suggested, **"I have a friend whose brother is an architectural designer. We should go see him first before we go get our loans and license."** Whitney's older brother, David, had graduated from a university with a bachelor's degree in architecture. He was also a very smart man whose grades were always excellent. He will be the perfect guy to hire for his services.

Ronan nodded and said, **"Alright, let's go. I'll wake up Drake."** He got himself dressed in his assassin's gear, but didn't equip all of his weapons; only his sword and dagger. He left his hood down since he had no reason to hide his face anymore. Minerva followed him downstairs and outside where Drake was sleeping. The man slapped his snout and the dragon snapped awake. **"C'mon big guy, Minerva and I need a lift,"** Ronan said to him. Drake came out and stretched his wings to get ready. The woman got onto the dragon and waited for the man to get on before they took flight.

Ronan hopped on too and Drake took off. **"Where am I taking you two?"** the dragon asked them, since he needed directions. He kept his flight low with only about three or four stories high.

Minerva answered, **"Over to my friend, Whitney's house."** She gave the dragon direction to her friend's house. Drake adjusted his course and flew to Whitney's home. There, he landed outside it lightly. Ronan hopped off and aided the woman in getting off, like a gentleman. **"Thanks!"** she said gratefully. Then they went over to the door and the woman and knocked on the door.

They stood there for a few seconds until the door swung open to reveal a ginger-haired woman with freckles on her face. Smiling happily, the woman greeted, **"Hey Minerva! I'm surprised to see you here."** Then she looked over to Ronan and asked, **"Who's this?"**

Minerva introduced him, **"This is Ronan; the guy who saved me two nights ago."**

The man put his fist over his heart and bowed to her. **"A pleasure to meet you. We have some important business to discuss with you if you're interested,"** he spoke with a calm manner and a sense of hopefulness in his tone. He added, **"I hope you don't mind my friend standing guard on your roof. He's a bronze dragon named Drake."** The dragon had glided and landed gently on the roof.

Whitney replied, **"Not at all; he can rest anywhere on my property as long as dad doesn't get home too soon."** Then she lowered her voice a bit into a warning tone, **"He don't like dragons, because of that rebellion a few days ago."**

Then a feminine voice was heard from the house, **"Whitney, who's at the door?"**

The redhead turned her head around and answered, **"It's Minerva and a friend of hers, mom."**

The mother's voice sounded with delight at the kind of guests they were having. **"Your friend's here? Well don't just stand there. Let them in,"** she told.

Whitney looked back to the couple and said, **"Well, come on in guys."** Then Minerva followed her friend inside the house and closed the door behind them. The redhead looked at them both and asked, **"So, what brings you guys here?"**

Ronan walked in with Minerva and said, **"We have a favor to ask. Minerva is helping me to establish a school, a martial arts school. We would like to ask your assistance." **

The redhead placed a hand on her hip and said, **"Okay, what can I help you with?"**

The man looked to the blonde, who said, **"We're actually looking for your brother. Is he here right now?"**

**"David?"** asked the redhead. She nodded and answered, **"Oh yeah, he's here alright. I'll go get him."** Then she went into the room at the beginning of the narrow hallway. Minerva could hear her saying, **"David, my friends need your help. I think they want you to design their school."**

**"Alright, I'll go see them,"** said the brother. Then Whitney came back out of the room with a freckle-less ginger-haired man, who was a few years older than his sister. David smiled at Minerva and greeted, **"Hey Minerva, what's up?"**

**"I'm doing good,"** the blonde replied and smiled back. Then she introduced her companion, **"This is Ronan, he's a new friend of mine who's staying with me."**

David held a hand out for the assassin to shake as he greeted, **"Hey there, nice to meet you!"**

Ronan shook his hand and replied, **"Honor to meet you. Minerva tells me you work as a contractor, handling the construction. I'm looking to establish a school, a place to train and teach the combative skills that I have learned myself. Minerva has agreed to be my partner and she has recommended you as the one to go to about getting the facility built. Can you help us?"**

David responded, **"Sure thing, man! So hey, what kind of combat are you teaching?"**

Minerva simply answered, **"Martial Arts."**

The siblings smiled with interest as the brother replied, **"Wow, cool!"**

Whitney smiled with excitement and said, **"That sounds like fun! I'll have to think about going there some day."**

Minerva smiled at Ronan and said optimistically, **"Looks like your business is going to be great."** If her friend and her brother felt that way, then others would, too. There may be a lot of money in it for the assassin.

The assassin smiled at the blonde before looking back to the others. He inquired, **"Minerva and I are going to be getting a few things done, but I would like to know how much will it cost us to pay you for this job?"**

David paused briefly as if he was thinking before he answered,**"Well Ronan, I'd say it would be 30 gold per hour when we get started. Does that sound fine?"**

Minerva nodded, feeling confident with the price, and replied, **"Of course. I'll be paying for it."  
**  
The male redhead said, **"Okay good, I can get started."** As he started to move, he told them, **"Follow me, we're going to work out the layout on a digital blueprint."** They followed him to his room, where he sat on a chair at the computer table. He opened up a architectural program and started a new blueprint file. David asked, **"Okay so besides the bathroom and dojo room, do you need other places in your school?" **

Ronan was impressed with the digital blueprint. He specified the necessary areas, **"I will need a managerial office as well as a front desk at the main entrance. If any of my future students become trained enough to teach, I will need a break room for those who teach under me."**

**"Okay, got it,"** David said. Then he started drawing out thumbnails of the layout on a sheet of paper. **"This will take a while, so you guys go hang out in the living room if you want."**

The assassin nodded, while Minerva said, **"Okay, we will."** They left David's room and went back to the living room.

There, Whitney asked them, **"So do you guys want to watch a movie in the meantime?"**

Ronan raised a brow in confusion before responding, **"Movie? What's a movie?"**

Whitney raised her eyebrow as well and asked, **"Did you live under a rock or something?"**

Minerva came to the man's rescue and explained, **"Actually Whitney, he's from the southwest region. Probably from a rural area."** The southwest region was home to some cultures that didn't believe in modern-day technology as it was against their religion. It was most likely that Ronan had come from one.

The redhead nodded and said, **"Ohhh, I see. Well that explains the weird clothes he's wearing." **Ronan smirked considering how little Whitney knew of him and smiled when Minerva defended him. Then the redhead turned to the man and explained to him, **"Alright Ronan, I don't know how I'm going to explain it to you, but I'll do my best. A movie is like a story, but with actors pretending to be characters."** She went over to the wide-screen TV and touched the black machine. **"And you can watch it on the TV here,"** she continued.

Ronan explained to her, **"I'm from the southern deserts. TV's don't exist out there. No computers, no televisions; nothing like that. I think it's because none of it has been introduced there yet. The various styles of clothing however, those constantly change and all styles are welcome."**

After listening to all that, Whitney's surprised response was, **"No technology in your country? Well dang, that sucks! We should start exporting over there right now."** Then she went to the DVD storage and took out a few movies that her guests may like. She asked, **"So Ronan, what kind of show do you like to see?"** Then she listed the categories, **"Horror, comedy, action?"**

Ronan shrugged in confusion and looked to Minerva, saying, **"Uh, you pick?"**

Minerva went over to her best friend's side and took a look at the DVDs. There were movies like Of Doves and Ravens, Misfits and Outcasts, and The Little Monster Girl. The blonde decided to go with a different movie other than the three mentioned. Picking up its case, she suggested, **"How about Bob and George?"** It was a pretty funny movie that she had watched in a cinema one time. She figured that Ronan might enjoy it, too.

Whitney smiled and said, **"Ooh, I love that movie. Let's all watch it together."** Minerva took the CD out of its case and put it into the DVD player. Then the redhead put the TV on HDM2, so that they can see the previews of other movies first. The three sat together to watch the movie.

* * *

**Author's Note:** The "movies" I mentioned in this chapter are actually references to me, my friends from Deviant Art, and a famous Megaman webcomic. The Little Monster Girl belongs to me, Of Doves and Ravens belong to AtlantaTheAristocrat, Misfits and Outcasts belong to Enkaharal, and Bob and George can be found here: .com

Whitney and David (c) me  
Azera (c) LordDraco8967


	37. The Zombie Thief

**Chapter 36: The Zombie Thief**

Kathia and Megan finally made it back to the camp of Sundown. The car was parked and the two got out of it with the girl carrying the bag of spellbooks in her arm. Earlier, she had been using her cellphone to look necromancer spells on the search engine. Most of the links came from gaming websites, which were of the fictional spells. She eventually found a legitimate website where she found a few spells. The first one being the "see ghosts" spell, which required grave dirt to allow her to see spirits, which means that she would have to go back to Windfall next time to get what she needed. The girl went over to see how Jason was doing with training the people in archery. It looked like his class had ended, because Jason had told his students, **"Alright folks; class is over! Y'all go ahead and eat lunch or go on with whatever business you all have in mind."** The students dispersed and went separate ways. Kathia took this as a chance to go tell the man about the equipment he asked for. Going up to him as the man turned around and smiled, asking, **"Hey Kathia, did you get what we need?"**

The girl nodded and answered, **"Yep! I got the spell books."** She showed him the bag with all the books in it. Then she pointed her thumb backwards over her shoulder to the open trunk of Megan's car, which was packed with boxes. She continued, **"And I got you the bow and arrows."**

Jason looked behind her and saw the desired weapons. The man was satisfied as he said, **"That's great! Because I had been everyone how to make bows and arrows. We found the wood and rocks to make our stuff, but we couldn't find anything to make a string."**

**"No string?"** asked Kathia, sounding surprised. **"That must suck!"** A bow without a string to shoot arrows would make it as useless as a broken TV.

Jason nodded in agreement and replied, **"Sure does. That's why I got you to buy those things, just in case something like this happens."** Then he looked at the girl's bag and asked, **"So, what kind of spell books did you buy?"**

**"Well,"** the girl said as she took out one book at a time to show him before she put them back in.

The man looked at each one and nodded his head with fascination. **"Wow! That's a lot of magic you're going to be teaching these people. You're going to turn the whole camp into wizards!"** he joked and laughed.

**"Not just wizards,"** said Kathia, smiling slyly. **"I'm also making necromancers out of them, too."**

Jason asked, **"Necromancers?"** The girl nodded and explained her reason for why she's teaching that. The man lifted his head up slightly and briefly as he understood what she was talking about. **"Ah! I see; that sounds like a great idea. Hopefully this time, we keep these scalies in place, which I know we will."**

**"Oh it's going to work alright,"** said Kathia, pretty confident and sure of the idea. Then they smelled food being cooked, making the girl have an appetite. She asked her friend, **"So, want to grab some lunch?"**

The man nodded and grinned, **"Oh yes, I need to fill my belly with some good food!"** Then they went over to join the line and get some lunch. The cooks were making hot dogs and meat of the few animals that were caught; mostly the small ones. Since the dragons were freed, finding bigger animals like bears and deer were harder than ever since the dragons fed on them. Kathia got herself a hot dog, while Jason got himself a squirrel and they sat at the table to eat.

* * *

The movie went on and showed some funny parts, making the women laugh. Ronan didn't get some of the jokes in the movie, but some of them did make him smile and laugh. Then Whitney looked at the two and asked, **"Hey, do you guys want some lunch?"**

Minerva smiled at the thought of delicious food and answered, **"Sure!"**

The redhead rose off the couch and said, **"Alright then, I'll make us some hot dogs and chips. Be right back!"** Then she went to the kitchen and started cooking. Whitney and her mother cooked the hot dogs and put ketchup and mustard on it. They put them on the plates and Whitney took out a bag of chips to put on the plates. The mother went to pour some lemonade in the cups. Once lunch was fixed, Whitney came to the living room with the foods for her guests. **"Lunch is ready, guys!"** she said.

Minerva got off the couch and said, **"Oh goodie! Thanks, Whitney!"**

**"You're welcome,"** said the redhead. Then they started eating lunch and drinking the lemonade as the movie continued on until the end.

* * *

After Jason finished his lunch, he went to go do his business in the woods. As Kathia ate her lunch and drink her water, she planned out what spells she should teach her students. The plant blessing spell was going to be first as she knew the people needed to farm their food and produce healthy crops. Then the next spell would be the anti-cockroach spell, which worked against all insects and not just roaches. Combined with the plant blessing spell, it'll further help to keep the produce as healthy and undamaged as possible. These two spells would be great for farmers and gardeners alike. Then she thought up a few more spells to teach her students like the no-wind spell and the book-blessing spell. Speaking of the latter, she thought to give this spell a short practice to refresh in her mind how to perform that spell. The girl opened up the beginner's guide to magic to see how the spell was done again. Then she started to cast that spell on each of the spell books she purchased. After she was done, she was greeted with a surprise visit from Azera, who was accompanied by a teen girl this time. She wore the swordsman's cloak and looked no more than 16 years old. She also had light purple eyes, which was an unusual color for a human being to have. Azera said to Kathia, **"About damn time I found you."**

The girl swallowed the last of her hot dog and asked, **"You're the same guy from before. Azera, was it? What brings you to Sundown?"**

The mercenary replied calmly, **"I came by to ask a favor. I was wondering if you had clothing for the girl that is with me right now. I, um, kind of found her on the road a bit ago and she seems to suffer from memory lost."** The teen felt kind of sorry to hear about the girl suffering from amnesia. **"That is the only reason why I'm-"** Azera started to say before a shadow flickered past them from above. Then there were frightened gasps and shouts from the campers.

**"Dragon!"** shouted a man. Kathia, Azera, and the girl looked straight up and saw the shiny scales of a sky drake, going extremely fast, almost toward the mountains. The people went to scurry their children inside tents for their safety, while those who had been trained in archery today went to Megan's car to get the bows and arrows Kathia purchased. Even though the sky drake was gone, the students still aimed in case another one showed up.

Kathia snorted, **"Hmph! Damn dragon's getting everyone get riled up. I hope that one didn't come from Windfall. That's the last kind of dragon we need here."** Then she calmed down and said to Azera, **"Anyway, there's a supply truck somewhere around here that has some spare clothes for her. I'll show you where it is."**Then the redhead got up and led the mercenary and the girl over to the truck. **"Here it is, that's where you'll what you're looking for,"** said the teen.

**"Thank you,"** Azera said as the girl went to the truck and started to look though the truck bed.

**"Hey, anytime,"** Kathia replied, happy to help out.

The mercenary said, **"Honestly I don't know what to do with her in her condition." **The girl continued to look though the truck until she found some clothing she chose. She walked from the truck and hide somewhere for a minute to put on the clothing and then came back. She wore a full black shirt with black shorts that came to her knees. They had scale pattern on them that looked like dragon scales.

Kathia observed how the attire looked on the girl and commented, **"Hey, that looks nice on you! Skin a pelt off a dragon into a shirt and you'll be wearing the real thing."**

Azera looked at the girl for a second and then turned his head to the redhead. **"By the way I never caught your name,"** he said. The girl kind of looked at the redhead for a second before handing Azera back his torn coat.

The teen told him, **"The name's Kathia and it starts with a K. I know it's not an everyday name, but that's what my parents named me." **

Then a man came over to her and reminded her, **"Kathia, your magic class is about to start."**

Kathia replied, **"Okay, I'll be right there. Just hang on a sec."** As the man left, she looked back at Azera and said, **"Well I got to go. These people can't learn magic by themselves."**

The mercenary nodded his head and put his torn coat on as he said,**"Well, best of luck with that."** There was a slight shift in the wind, almost unnoticeable, almost like someone was messing with the wind around here.

The redhead walked back to the table and collected the spell books. Then she went over to the training area to see a group of students chatting among themselves. The girl got to a spot in front of them and put the spellbooks, save for the Beginner's Guide, down to her side. **"Okay guys, be quiet!"** she ordered. The conversations immediately stopped as the people turned to look at their teacher. Content with their obedience, Kathia said, **"Good! Now everybody start lining up side by side."** The students did as they were told, forming a horizontal line for her to see. Nodding, the girl said, **"Excellent! Now we can all get started."**

Kathia instructed them how to unlock their powers with the two magic words. The students repeated these words and felt the magic energy within them. They all looked surprised and amazed at the effect of unlocking their magic. However, some were unable to feel their magic energies, no matter how hard they tried to say "Unluck magisto." One guy said to his teacher, **"I'm not feeling anything. Can I still use magic?"**

The teacher wasn't sure what to make of this as she said, **"Well gee, I don't know. Why don't we try out a spell and see. Let's try the plant-blessing spell."** She told them how to do that spell and demonstrated to them how it was done by casting the spell on the grass.**"Now you guys try,"** she said. So the students started casting that spell. Over half of them got the spell working, but the others couldn't manage to pull it off.

One of the women complained, **"I can't cast the spell."**

**"What?!"** Kathia asked. After a few other complaints, the girl said, **"Well maybe you people are doing it wrong. Hang on, let me see what this book says."** She went to look up an answer to their problem and found what it was. **"It says that that magic has a high mental strain and that those whose heart wavers, cannot successfully pull off the magic,"** she answered from the guide said. The girl told her students, **"So to all those who didn't feel anything after "unluk magisto", please leave and build yourselves a stronger mind. But everyone else, please stay and see if there are other spells that you can do."** So the unlucky people left the crowd with looks of disappointment on their faces. With the weak-minded gone, Kathia went back to the session at hand. **"So anyway, that plant-blessing spell can be used to grow and maintain healthy plants,"** she informed the students. With a grin this time, she continued,**"Hey, you can even a beautiful garden or a great crop with that spell."** Few of the students all smiled at what the plant-blessing spell can do and talked amongst themselves about what they would with the spell. The girl shut them up and said, **"Yeah yeah, I know it's good. But let's move on to the next spells alright?"** Then she started teaching them the rest of the spells from the beginner's guide she knew by heart.

* * *

After the movie ended and everyone ate their lunch, David came out of his room and said to the guests, **"Okay, I got the blueprint done. Want to check it out?"**

Minerva got off the couch and replied, **"Sure."** She followed the man back to his room and see the layout design.

David pointed to each section as he explained, **"Okay, I got the front desk over at the entrance like you wanted. Then this short hallway here is going to take you to the restrooms. Also next to the front desk is the managerial office. That biggest room right here is where the dojo is at. Behind it is the storage room for the equipment. And lastly, we have the break room like you wanted."** Then he looked at Ronan and said, **"Does everything look fine with you, sir?"**

Ronan examined each room and section as it was described. He nodded and said **"Very good. How much will it cost to build?"** He had his arms crossed.

David looked at the blueprint to see answered, **"Well normally, it would be 30000 gold. But with the Aquarians using their powers to make free building materials, I'd lower it down to 2500 just for the land."**

Minerva looked at Ronan gleefully and said, **"Looks like I won't be paying too much after all."**

The redhead man continued on, **"And for the way the blueprint is now. I would also charge you 60 gold."**

Ronan nodded and replied, **"Perfect. Minerva and I can move ahead with our plans and you can get the blueprints finalized for us." **Then he looked to the blonde and asked, **"What's our next step?" **

The woman placed a hand on her chin as she looked up thoughtfully. **"Let's see..."** she said, trying to remember the steps she learned. **"I think we're supposed to get some business training over at a business administration office. They'll teach us everything about how to run the school."**

The assassin nodded and said,**"Well then, we should go get that taken care of as well. Hopefully it doesn't take too long, we do have plans tonight."** He smirked at her with a wink.

Minerva giggled; feeling flattered and said, **"Well maybe we can ask them to make it quick."**

Then they turned to the siblings and Ronan said to them, **"It was a pleasure and an honor meeting you all." **He gave a respectful bow to them.

David smiled friendly and said, **"No problem, man! It's nice having guests around."**

Whitney grinned and said, **"And I'm glad we got to hang together! I can't wait to see this school of yours."**

**"Me too,"** said Minerva, nodding a bit. Then they said their goodbyes to each other before the blonde and the assassin left the building.

Drake jumped down from the roof and Ronan asked him, **"Ready to go Drake? We got another stop to make. We're heading to the inner city."** The man hopped up onto Drake's back and held a hand out to help Minerva up. The woman took his hand and was lifted up onto the dragon. Drake took off into the air and headed for the inner city.

* * *

After practicing the spells they were taught, the students started to feel drained from being low on magic energy. Kathia decided it was time to let them rest, **"Alright everybody, take a break. We're going to let that magic energy recharge itself while I look up more spells to teach you."** Then suddenly, she heard panic screams behind her.

A random man shouted, **"Oh my gods, it's coming right into our camp!"**

**"Huh?"** Kathia said as she turned around to look for the sight of the people's fear. There, she saw a black draconic creature flying down towards the camp. Annoyed at having this beast in human territory, the girl yelled, **"Oh no you don't, you wretched beast! You're not setting foot in this camp."** Just after she said it, the creature landed in the camp.

A few archers, including Jason, went to shoot their arrows at it. The arrows were stuck in its sides and legs, but blood only oozed out of it on impact. The drake seemed to ignore everyone as it started to look through tents, cars, and everything. The people ran away screaming to avoid chances of getting attacked by the creature. The archers were confused as to why the beast kept on going unfazed, despite their arrows having hit it. It was unbelievable how the creature did not make a pained reaction. Jason said, **"Damn, that thing ain't slowing down. It's like it got CIP or something."**

Seeing as how shooting was useless, Kathia thought that magic may work instead. She went to aid the archers by casting a lightning bolt at the drake. The stench from the drake was overwhelming; it smelled like a corpse that had been left out for days. _'Wait... that smell? Is it a zombie?'_ the girl wondered. The lighting was met with a wall of earth. The drake did not even look that way as it continued its search.

One of the archers asked about the earth wall, **"Hey, where the heck did that come from?"**

Jason shook his head and guessed, **"I don't know, but I bet that thing used magic to protect itself. I guess Kathia's magic spell would have done a number on it, unlike our arrows."**

Another archer pinched his nose to block out the stench that was filling the air around them. **"Ugh, why does it smell so bad?"** he asked.

Kathia told him, **"Because that thing is a zombie. Some necromancer resurrected it for his own use."** Maybe the necromancer was Spinx, but who knows?

The archers looked to her, thinking that she knows something. Jason asked, **"For real? What the heck does the necromancer want from this camp?" **

The girl answered, **"I don't know, but we better go see."** So they followed the drake to see what it's up to. They kept the distance far enough to avoid antagonizing the creature with their presence, but also close enough to see in details what it did.

Kathia felt someone tap on her shoulder and turned her head to see a black-haired man in a dark leather outfit saying, **"You are Kathia, correct? The rumors don't do you justice. I am sure that you know this by now, but that is being controlled by magic. This could mean two possibilities. One, the castor is nearby; and if we take out the castor, we take out the dragon. Or two, you could attempt to use a void magic spell if you know any."** Just as he said that, the drake cocked its head right to group, almost like it was intelligent to know what it was going on. It turned its head back to the search for whatever it was looking for. It soon came to a tent and went inside, not caring nor paying heed to the frightened people around it or in it. Someone inside the tent took a swing at the drake and hit the creature, but still not slowing it down. It grabbed a bag, which seem to be filled with food. Instead of just flying right then and there, it made a bull rush dash right out of camp and went back towards the mountain.

**"It's stolen our food!"** Kathia cried. That thief was going to pay and the girl would make sure of it. **"Come on, let's stop this thing and find out who the thief is!"** she said. She and the others started to pursue the drake. The girl rode on her stallion after the creature as she cast her lightning spells at it. **"Yah!"** she shouted. The black drake got hit by the bolt as it simply slid right at the foot of the mountain. Kathia got ahead of the group and a bit closer to the downed drake for a second. The drake laid there for a second before moving again as it staggered up the mountain. It made rock slabs, almost like a staircase. It ran right up it, making a zig-zag pattern up the mountain as it also cast rock slabs to either block it chasers or to slow them down greatly. It still dodged lighting strikes and even arrows now. The horse reared up startled by the sudden rise of the slab and whinnied in fright. Kathia fell off the stallion as she screamed. She hit the ground and rolled down the slope. **"Oof!"** she said after the last roll.

The archers caught up to the girl and Jason asked her, **"You alright?" **

Getting up as the men helped her, Kathia said, **"Yeah, I'm fine. Where's my horse?"**

Another archer answered, **"It's still here; it's just coming down the mountain towards us."** Just as he said, the stallion went back to the archers. The girl was glad to see her horse didn't run off through the woods. The same archer tried to aim at the drake and shoot another arrow. The drake got struck in the side and stumbled a bit.

Before she could do anything to weaken the creature further, Kathia saw an arrow flying towards her cohort. **"Jason, watch out!"** she cried as she threw herself at him and knocked him down to the ground. Her partner was safe, but not-so for the other archer who got pierced in the throat and started choking on blood. He fell over dead as the others looked at him in surprise.

**"What the heck?!"** said the black archer.

Kathia guessed who was behind the attack and likened it to the necromancer that Azera had warned her about. **"Quick! We have to leave!"** she cried, sounding panicked.

The archer looked at her confused and asked, **"Leave? Why?"**

As she got on the horse, the girl answered, **"A necromancer; a very dangerous one. We got to go now!"** Then she made the horse gallop back to Sundown. The archers didn't bother to waste any time as they figured Kathia might be right. They picked up the dead body and carried it back to camp as they fled for their lives.

After a while, the group made it safely back to the camp. The girl went to tie the horse's reins around the wooden pole and went to rejoin the group. The food storage man came over to them and asked, **"Hey, did you get back the food?" **

Jason shook his head and told him, **"Sorry to say, but no. The damn thing just used its magic to block and slow us down. Not only that, but we also got some dangerous fool getting in their way."** They showed the food storage man the dead person, which shocked him and the surrounding campers nearby.

The food storage man asked anxiously, **"Whoa! You mean to tell me there's a killer out there in the woods?" **

The lead archer told him in a determined tone, **"Apparently so; but next time, we're going to find him and then we teach him a lesson."** Then he added, **"That is, after we get stronger."**

Just then, a flock of black birds were seen flying towards the camp. For some strange reason, they were flying towards them. Kathia was astonished as she asked, **"Oh my gosh, what's going on?!" **

Jason, who was just as alarmed, said, **"I don't know, but we need to scram."** So they did, running away to get out of the way of the birds. The other archer dropped the body to free himself of the burden that would slow him down. Kathia saw Azera running right into the camp at full speed and passing the group in the opposite direction they were going. Then the group stopped and turned around to see the birds gathering at the dead body.

The little black birds, though tiny and many, went straight for the body. They all attacked the body from what they could see, almost like vultures picking a body clean of meat. They saw what the birds did in a matter of seconds as the body became more of a skeleton. Kathia, the archers, and the campers all looked wide-eyed in fear and shock. **"Oh my gods!"** said the redhead girl, who dropped her mouth in awe.

The black archer said, **"What the hell? That ain't right..."** This was a very unusual and scary behavior for typical black birds. These avians were omnivores as in eating insects, berries, and seeds; but they weren't known to be crazy scavengers feeding on human flesh. The scene presented before them almost looked to be some kind of curse brought from the great devil himself. Then a large ring of fire appeared and scared away the birds. They also noticed the bolt was gone from the body. The archers looked at Kathia and Jason asked, **"Kathia, did you do that?" **

The girl denied, **"No... I didn't."** She was still shaken up by the barbaric scene. Azera came from the group, right up to the now unknown part skeleton body. Kathia looked at him, while talking to Jason, **"He probably did though."** The mercenary never looked at the corpse as he snapped his figures and lit the body on fire, while still watching the birds fly back to the mountain before they disappeared.

The archers got appalled with the burning of the body as one of them asked, **"Hey! What are you doing?" **Azera did not look towards the person that yelled something at him as the body turned to ashes. Kathia noticed the corners of his eyes were seen as they look like a small flame was raging in them. The girl admired his spell and wanted to have it for her own. She'll have to look through one of the spellbooks to learn it later. A little girl kind of pushed and slipped her way through the crowd until she was right up to Azera. It was the same girl that had the black scale pattern clothing on. The flames soon turned a pale blue as the ashes became a crystal gem. It stopped shortly after the mercenary walked away from the group, right towards the mountain.

**"What the heck?"** asked one of the confused archers.

**"What just happened?"** asked another archer.

Kathia went to the gem and picked it up. She stared at it, wondering why the body was turned into this gem and for what purpose. The girl saw Azera walking away and went up to him. **"Excuse me,"** she said. **"Why did you turn him into a crystal?"**

The man looked at her and said in an uncaring tone, **"Because whoever is his family, if he had one, could keep him closer. That crystal by the way is a fragile blue quartz. And when you look at the light correctly, it seems like water."** The little girl went by Kathia as well as she came up to Azera. The man walked from the redhead as the little girl looked back at her, almost with a tilted head. She turned back around and ran to catch up with Azera. Even if it was soft to hear, it looked like the man was telling her to stay, but the little girl shook her head in a no. Azera hit his head with his hand as he simply continued his way to the mountain.

Shortly afterwards, a crying woman came running over to the scene of the bird attack and sobbed, **"Oh Marcus!"** When she couldn't find the man she was looking for, the woman grabbed Kathia's shoulders and pleaded,**"Where is my husband? Tell me!"** Her water-soaked eyes were red as if she had been crying a lot.

The girl showed her the blue quartz and answered, **"He's been turned into this."**

The woman looked at the beautiful object and asked, **"This is my husband?"**

**"Yeah, kinda,"** answered Kathia. She placed the quartz in the woman's hand and told her, **"You should keep it with you."**

The woman looked at the quartz for a second before she clasped her hands around it and held it to her chest. **"Oh Marcus, I'll keep you safe with me... always,"** she sobbed.

Everyone looked at the crying woman in pity for her loss. Kathia thought, _'Don't worry, I'll let you see your husband again. Just you wait.'_ Jason decided to leave the woman alone and took his group to do some hunting to replace the stolen food. The men left as the Kathia went back to her students to resume teaching. **"Right, where were we?"** she said, trying to remember where she left off.

A teen boy answered, **"We were resting to bring our energy back."**

**"Right,"** said the teacher. **"Are you all rested yet?"**

**"No,"** answered everyone.

**"Okay then, let's wait some more."** So Kathia went to grab a chair to sit and went to reading the beginner's guide.

* * *

**Author's Note:** The man who tapped Kathia during the drake's raid is Jericho. I'd describe what he looks like, but there's no wikia for him and I don't think his player has ever made a post about what he looks like. I've sent him a PM asking for his character's description, but I have yet to hear from him.

EDIT: I asked Forsaken Rider of Dreams what his character looks like and wrote it a bit of it. This is what Jericho looks like: user/dragonxkeeper/media/guild%20reference/Character%20Pictures/2K13-Apr-4-Garrett-1_ .html Except that he has tanner skin and a light gray scarf. Dark black hair and no hood or mask. When he needs to, the scarf is the mask. I may write in that description in his character story.

Marcus (c) me  
Jericho (c) Forsaken Rider of Dreams


	38. Business Lessons and the Date

**Chapter 37: Business Lessons and the Date**

As Drake flew on over the city, Minerva did her best to tell him where their destination was, **"I think recalled the business training center being over on Harvard Avenue. I'm not sure if the street name or layout is the same. They redesigned the whole city after the destruction."** The dragon descended down a bit and flew over towards the business district. The woman looked at the buildings' names to see if any of them read business training. Soon, she found a small building that said _Cypress Business and Tech_. Pointing to it, Minerva said, **"There it is, Drake. Take us there."** Drake swooped down quickly and landed softly in front of the building.

The two humans got off before Ronan told his friend, **"We'll be right back, Drake; just... lay low. Stay out of trouble, okay?"** The dragon laid down outside but he didn't sleep, more of a guard dog position.

Minerva and Ronan went to the door and opened it to go inside. They went up to the front desk where a female receptionist saw them and said, **"Good afternoon! How may I help you?"**

The blonde answered, **"I'm here to get Ronan registered for business class. We're planning on setting up a martial arts school and we need learn everything we can to run things right."**

The receptionist took out a clipboard with a registration form and said, **"Well you're just in time, because the first day of the novice classes starts tomorrow. Just fill out this form and I'll have you up in the system for teaching."** She placed the clipboard on the desk to show as well a pen to accompany it.

Ronan glared and said, **"Perhaps I can speak with your superior. The one who runs this facility. I'm sure he'd like to meet the one who saved the people of the AED building from the city's crime ring. Would he not?"** He gave a solid stare and his hand gripping the hilt of his sword. **"I have very little in the way of patience right now. If you would be ****_kind_**** enough to direct me to him or her, I will be on my way."** The receptionist's eyes widened in surprise and she was scared what the assassin might do if she doesn't comply with him. Minerva was afraid of what he was going to do until she saw his wink and relaxed. Apparently, he had been bluffing to get them a business advantage.

The blonde told the woman in a tone gentle compared to the man's, **"Please, we really want to set up our school soon. So if you call the director, we'll see if we can try and make this quick."**

The receptionist replied, **"Alright fine. I'll see if he's not busy."** Then she dialed the numbers and called the director, **"Mr. Yager, there's a couple of people who wish to see you about setting up a school."** Quiet inaudible voice was heard from the phone and the woman responded, **"Okay, I'll tell them you're on your way."** The phone was hang up, the receptionist turned back to the clients. **"Our director will be here shortly."**

After a short while, a black-haired man with olive skin, lines around his mouth, and a black business suit came to see the clients. **"So are you the ones looking to learn from this center?"** he asked.

Ronan bowed to the gentleman and said, **"Yes we are. If I may, I'd prefer to talk in private. On a business matter."**

**"Fine then, let's go over to my office,"** the director told him. So the clients followed the man over to his office where he took his seat at the desk. Minerva sat on one of the two wooden chairs before the desk. Mr. Yager looked at them and said, **"Okay, before we get started, I would like to know the names of the people I'm dealing with."** Pointing at the woman, he said, **"Let's start with you, miss."**

Minerva introduced herself, **"My name is Minerva, sir."**

**"Nice name,"** commented Mr. Yager. Then he looked to Ronan and asked, **"And what about you, young man?"**

The assassin bowed again and said in a clear and concise tone, **"Ronan. My friend and I have limited time today, so I'll get to the point. I'm looking to establish a school to teach the combative skills that I am trained in. I have no business expertise, but perhaps that is where you can help us. Minerva is my partner in this endeavor and we need to understand what it'll take to operate the facility once it is built and we don't have time to waste with classes to learn this."**

Mr. Yager listened to him and said, **"I don't know why you are in such a hurry, my good man. But I'm pretty sure there's no harm in waiting a week to learn all the important details you need. Besides, I'm a very busy man and there are things that need to be taken care for tomorrow's first class. So I can't waste time trying to teach you everything in less than a day."  
**  
Minerva had a feeling that her friend wasn't going to take the director's decline to teach so easily, so she tried to come up with an alternative wave. **"Wait,"** she blurted.

The director turned to her and asked, **"What is it?"**

The woman asked,**"If you can't teach, then would you give us some kind of book for us to borrow? Like a textbook or a handbook of some sorts."**

Mr. Yager paused a bit in his thoughts before saying, **"Well that may work. But I still rather you learn from this center. If you can learn everything from a book and run your school right, then good for you. Otherwise, this would have been a waste of time."**

Ronan smirked at the businessman's reply and said to the woman,**"He's right Minerva; odds are we can't make it work with just a text book. Besides, he probably can't teach us anyway. May as well just waste a week learning this stuff."**

The director frowned at being made out to be useless.**"Hey, I'll have you know that many of my students have passed my courses and are doing pretty well in their business,"** he told him, sounding offended.

Minerva understood where the assassin was going at with this reverse psychology and told Mr. Yager, **"Then maybe you can teach us now, since you're so good at it. I'm pretty sure that you can get this done."**

**"Alright fine, but I'll teach you really quickly,"** Mr. Yager gave in and said. But then he warned, **"But you better hope you learn much from this."** Then he started to teach them how to run a school and the things they need to do. Ronan smirked at his success and nodded at Minerva for her aid in making it work. He took a seat and listened carefully getting as much of the details down mentally as possible. He grabbed a nearby pen and paper and wrote down as much as he could. He made certain to underline things that were highly important.

* * *

After the break, Kathia resumed teaching her students magic until everybody ran out of energy again. Then two of the people who quit magic class approached the girl. She looked at them, wondering what they wanted, and asked, **"Can I help you?"**

The smiling man said to her, **"Kathia, I think we just unlocked our inner magic. We're ready to rejoin your class."** The woman next to him gave a short nod.

**"Well that's good and all,"** the girl said to them. **"But you're going to have to get one of these people here to teach you later."** She was referring to her students as she pointed to them. **"I don't repeat my lessons unless I want to,"** she said to them.

The woman inquired, **"Well? When do you want to?"**

Kathia put a hand on her chin and her red eyes looked off to the side for a bit. She answered, **"Well... I suppose that would be after my current students have learned all they need to know."** Then she looked back at the duo and continued, **"But if you're lucky, it might be before then. So who knows?"** Then she saw the archers coming over to the food tent with a slain sweetling dragonet they had hunted down. The girl looked at the dead body and thought of a good plan for it. Without looking at the couple, she told them, **"Excuse me." **

As Kathia went to the food tent, she heard the lead archer talking to the cook, **"Sir, you're going to have a lot of that sweet tasty meat in the house!"**

The cook heartily chuckled, **"Ho ho! I know the whole camp is going to love eating this little fellow here."** What he said wasn't a lie at all. Sweetling meat, without any spices, was the tastiest meat in the whole world. Many people would take that over beef, pork, chicken, and seafood. It was even more special on Valentine's Day where they would be holiday foods based on sweetling meat.

After reaching the men, Kathia looked at the dragonet and said to Jason, **"Nice catch there!"**

**"Thanks,"** the lead archer grinned and said. **"Took a while to find a dragon out there. Had to chase down a dragon family, killed two and brought this one back. The other was too big to drag."**

The girl said, **"Could have been a lot more meat with the other one was here, huh?"**

Jason replied, **"Yeah, well you can't always stuff everything into a suitcase. So might as well make do with what you can take."**

**"Well, what if you had a big dragon to carry the other one you killed?"** asked Kathia, trying to bring the conversation to the subject she wanted to talk about.

The men behind Jason looked at her as if she was crazy and one of the archers said, **"What the heck are you saying? In case you've forgotten, these dragons don't want to work for us no more. You can't just walk up to them and ask for a favor."**

**"Not that way, nope,"** the girl said. **"But what if we used a dead dragon instead? You know? Necromancy."**

The men stared at her with interest at the idea. The other archer said, **"Necromancy... where the hell did you get that idea?"**

**"I looked it up on the internet,"** the girl answered.**"I don't think there was a spell book for it in the store. But I only looked it up after seeing a necromancer fight Azera, the guy who turned that man into blue stone."** Then she looked to the cook and said,**"Listen, after you take off all the meat you need. I need you to bury one of the animals. I need grave dirt for a spell I want to use tonight. It'll let me see ghosts at night."**

Jason asked, **"Trying out a new spell, huh?"**

**"Yep!"** replied the enthusiastic girl. **"That's going to be my first step in trying out that necromancy thing."**

The cook said, **"You look eager to do it. Okay, I'll bury the raccoon that guy over there has, when I'm done with it. I'll let you know where it is."**

**"Thanks sir!"** Kathia replied.

**"No problem,"** the cook said. The archers took the dragonet and the game animals into the food tent. The girl went back to her students and took up the beginner's guide to read some new spells.

Ten minutes later, there was a loud cracking sound coming from somewhere. Kathia put down her book and asked, **"What was that?" **

A teen girl among the students answered, **"It sounded like it came from the mountain."**

Kathia turned around looked up at the mountain and saw what appeared to be a broken giant diamond tower in the distance. **"Huh?"** she murmured to herself as she stared at it for a bit. Then she turned back to her students and said, **"Never mind that, let's just rest another five minutes before we go back to our lessons."**

* * *

So for 4 hours, Mr. Yager taught Ronan everything he needed to run his school. **"And that's how you run your school,"** said the director. Then he looked at the clock on the wall and sighed to himself, **"Boy, this took a lot longer than I thought."** Then looking back at the clients, he asked, **"So now that we've reached the end of this 'class', do you have any questions you want to ask me?"** Minerva didn't have anything on her mind, so she looked to Ronan to see if he had something to say.

Ronan read through his notes before he shook his head. **"I think we got everything. Thank you for your time and teaching. Should you find yourself curious about our school, feel free to come by after we've opened,"** he said, bowing before he and Minerva headed to the door.

Mr. Yager replied, **"I will keep that in mind. Have a good day, you two."**

The assassin looked to the woman and chuckled, whispering to her, **"Excellent work back there. You have some skill with psychology. I just know how to trick people without them seeing it."**

The woman felt flattered and said, **"Oh gee, that was nothing. I just wanted to try and convince him; that's all."** Then they went out the door.

Drake got up, looking to the two as they came out the building. **"Well you two certainly took a long time. I had to spook a few kids waiting out here,"** the dragon said with a smirk. **"Find what you were looking for?"**

Ronan smiled hopping once again onto his friend's back and helping Minerva up as well. **"Yep. Let's go home. Minerva and I have one last thing to do today,"** he said, grinning. Drake took off back towards home.

Once there, they hopped off and opened the front door. As they went inside, Minerva looked at the man and asked, **"So what else do we need to do?"**

With a smirk, he answered, **"We'll deal with the rest tomorrow. I recommend finding something else to do until this evening." **He nudged her playfully before he went upstairs.

The woman thought about the things she could do in the meantime. She said to herself, **"Well I suppose I should go and display the flyers around the neighborhood."** She went upstairs to her room and took the flyers she had printed. Then she back downstairs and went out the front door. Looking at Drake, Minerva told him, **"Drake, I'm going out to put flyers. I'm going to be back soon."** The dragon nodded in response before she went to the nearest light post and taped one of the flyers on it. Then she went around the street to look for another good to put the second flyer. After a while of going around the neighborhood, Minerva came to a park where she put another flyer on the light pole for visitors to see. She looked at the remaining flyers she had in her hand and saw that she was down to 6 left. _'I'm almost done. I just have to keep going on my last assignment will be done,'_ she thought. But first, she decided to sit on the bench to rest her tired legs for a bit. Then after half an hour later, Minerva got off the bench and resumed her job. She left the park and went to the small business section. After placing a flyer on another light pole, she saw an interesting man who stood out from the crowd as he was riding a horse. He had long brown hair tied at the end of his ponytail wore samurai-like grayish-blue robes with white trim. He was very muscular and has a single scar running from the right side of his forehead to his left cheek. The woman looked at him for a bit, thinking that he might have been wearing some kind of costume or it was his actual attire. Probably most likely the latter.

The man came to a stop outside a stable and left the horse there. He grabbed his naginata and started to walk the streets using it as if it were nothing more than a walking staff, minus the obvious. Noticing his weapon, Minerva thought that he must be another foreign warrior, just like Ronan. He was probably from the continent of Haniyas or from somewhere else. The woman stopped looking at him and went back to her job at hand. Seeing an empty space on the side wall of a post office, she thought about putting a flyer there. But first, she needed to ask for the owner's permission to do so, since this was private property. She went inside the post office and went up to the front desk. Minerva spoke to the receptionist, **"Excuse me, I saw a perfectly good spot on the building to put a flyer there. May I place one there?"**

The receptionist shook his head and said, **"No, you may not, ma'am."**

She knew that was the answer she was going to get, but she had been hoping it would be the opposite. **"Okay then, thanks!"** the woman replied. Then she left the post office and went somewhere else. After she posted the remaining flyers in other places, Minerva decided it was time to go back home. So she walked on her way home. Minerva returned back to the house and sat on the couch to rest. She turned on the TV to see what was on the news. The news talked about a few things like a new species of animal and a new store opening in the city. But the biggest one that caught her attention the most was an anti-dragon organization called the Equalists. Apparently, there had been a skirmish that ended with the daydream dragons calming the crowd down. The woman felt a bit dismayed at what she just saw, but also wasn't surprised at all. Then news then cut to a more disheartening report about dragons in various parts of the world attacking humans, who were fighting for their lives. Minerva was horrified to see this happening to her race. Sure her race had done many bad things to the dragons, but two wrongs didn't make a right. It was terrible what these creatures were doing. She wondered and hoped that some humans had been spared on purpose like she had been.

* * *

Evening had finally come; Minerva was inside her room getting ready for the dinner date tonight. She looked for the dresses in her closet and tried to decide which one was the best. Would she look good to Ronan in pink? What about light blue? Would the man be okay with seeing something sparkle? How would she look in a rainbow-colored dress? There were many choices for her to pick out. After a quick pondering of her decisions, Minerva decided to go with the sparkling-chested light blue dress. She took it out of the closet and changed into that dress. Then she went to the jewelry box and took out a pearl necklace, diamond earrings, and pearl bracelets. After putting them on, the woman went to the bathroom and put make-up on her face and perfume on her. Now that she was done, Minerva went downstairs to meet Ronan who was already waiting for her. He was dressed in black insert material type outfit with matching top and pants. Admiring his clothing, she said, **"Ronan, you look cool in that outfit!"**

The man was stunned speechless by her dress. **"Minerva... you look..."** he said, unable to finish his sentence. **"Just... wow,"** he smiled as he continued. The woman could tell that Ronan really liked her outfit; she had made the perfect choice. He held out his arm to her like a gentleman and asked, **"Shall we?"**

The woman put her arm around his and simply smiled in response. Then they went out the door and saw Drake, who had just risen and was ready for flight. **"We're ready, Drake,"** said Minerva. Drake lowered himself, so they could get on his back. Once aboard, he took off to one of the fancy restaurants in Windfall. Once they landed, Ronan helped Minerva off of Drake and 'tied' the dragon down. The man then turned back to the woman and held out his arm to her again. Minerva took Ronan's arm and walked with him to the double doors. The woman smiled and commented, **"Ronan, you're such a gentleman. You know that?"**

The man smiled and complimented her in return, **"With a woman like you, it's hard not to be."** Then they went inside the building to the waiting lobby. Another couple, who was leaving, went past them out the door.

The host took the small family who was waiting early to their tables. Another host arrived to greet Minerva and Ronan, **"Hi there, are you a party of two?"**

The man answered, **"Yes, table for two please; and if you wouldn't mind asking the chef to get something tasty for the large brown dragon outside? He's with me. Very tame."**

The host happily replied, **"Sure, I'll go tell the cooks to whip something up after I get you seated. Follow me!" Taking up the two menus, the host led the couple to one of the empty tables. After he placed the menus down on the table, the host asked them, "So what does your dragon eat?"  
**  
Minerva answered, **"He eats meat. I fed him some ham today."**

**"Oh okay, then pork it is! I'll go get him some," **said the host. Then he left for the kitchen to tell the cooks what to make.

They took their seats and started looking through the menu at the various meals, drinks, and desserts. Minerva thought about their first course of dinner and asked, **"Hey Ronan, should we order an appetizer?"**

Her date 'hmmed' before nodding, **"Yes, some appetizers would be a good start. You can pick."**

The woman gave a quick look at the appetizer section of the menu again and decided what she would have. Minerva suggested, **"****Let's take the asiago shrimp for now. Does that sound good?"**

Ronan nodded and said, **"Sounds good to me. Let's also get something good to drink besides water. Any good ideas for that?"  
**  
Minerva, having memorized from the drinks section on what she wanted, said, **"The sparkling white grape juice sounds nice. Have you ever tried one?"** The fizzy spark plus the sweet taste was very nice to the tongue. She wondered if the restaurant's version will be just like the one from the grocery store or even better.

The man smiled and replied, **"Sounds interesting, let's try it."** They waited for their waiter/waitress to arrive.

Pretty soon, the waitress arrived at their table and said, **"Hi, my name is Betty and I'll be your server for tonight. May I get you something to drink?"**

Minerva said to her, **"We would like some muscandine grape juice, please."**

Betty wrote the order for two glasses of the juice and said, **"Okay, muscandine grape juice coming up. I'll get you all that as well as some water to go."** Then she left for the kitchen to get them their drinks.

With them alone again, the blonde had quickly realized something. **"Uh oh, we forgot to tell her to get us the shrimp,"** she said with a flat hand over her mouth.

Ronan replied, **"Don't worry, I'll mention it when she returns."** He looked over the menu for a while before the waitress returned.

Betty came back with a plate of the juice they ordered as well as two glasses of water to accompany them. With a smile, she said, **"Hey you go! Muscandine juice and some water to go with them."** She set them down on the table, giving one of each drink to each person. She also gave them straws to drink from the glasses, too. **"Now may I start you off with some appetizers?"** she asked.

Then Ronan told her the order, **"We'd like the asiago shrimp appetizers to start with please."**

**"Alright then, I'll be back!"** The waitress went back to the kitchen and told the cooks what to make.

Having already picked what entree she wanted to eat, Minerva said, **"Ronan, have you decided what you wanted to eat?"**

The man spotted a good option that got his interest. **"Yes; the black seasoned steak. Sounds delicious,"** he with a smile.

**"I think so too; I would like to try one, too,"** said Minerva. She pictured the steak in her mind and imagined the taste of meat juice plus the spices giving flavor to it.

Ronan took a sip from the glass of the sparkling juice. **"Wow that's actually really good," **he commented.

The woman asked, **"Really? Let me try it."** She took a sip, too, and felt the sweet taste of the juice and the sparkles of the carbonate substance in it. **"Wow! It is good,"** she said, enjoying the juice.

The man smiled at his date with a chuckle and said, **"I'm glad we could do this. I've never had fun like this and... I'm glad it's with you."**

**"Oh you're very welcome, Ronan,"** said the flattered woman. She appreciated having to give joy to the man's lonely life.

The man raised his glass towards hers. **"A toast, to our school... and to us."** Minerva picked up her glass and touched it with his. She smiled gleefully before they put down the wine glasses.

The waitress came back with the appetizers and two small plates and set them on the table. She said, **"Hey you go, enjoy!"** Minerva picked up a few shrimp to put on her plate and ate one. Betty left to go serve another customer.

Ronan tried some of the shrimp and commented in a satisfied tone, **"Not bad. Don't think I've ever had shrimp before. Interesting taste."** He ate a few, savoring the flavor.

**"Well it is pretty good,"** said Minerva. **"That's why it's one of the most favorite kinds of seafood."** She ate the rest of her shrimp on the plate.

A little while later, Betty came back to take another order from them. With a pretty smile, she asked, **"Hey, how was the shrimp?"**

**"Very good,"** answered the blonde.

Ronan smiled and replied, **"Very well made."** He wiped his mouth with a napkin before he made his order, **"I'd like the black seasoned steaks please and could I get two as well as the side of potatoes? Mashed of course,"** he spoke as politely as possible.

Minerva was pleased with the man's generosity at getting her a steak. Betty wrote down the order and said, **"Two steaks and a side of mashed potatoes."** Then she looked at the blonde and asked, **"What about you, miss? Which side would you like?"**

The blonde answered, **"I'd like some green beans, please."**

**"Okie-dokie, coming right up!"** said the waitress. Then she went back to the kitchen. After the food was cooked, she returned with the meals and set them on the table. **"Here you go, eat up!"**

Ronan thanked the waitress before he and Minerva grabbed the forks and knives and started to eat. The taste of the meat itself was absolutely blissful and the seasoning was divine. **"Oh wow that's incredible... that is soo good. How do they cook it so well like that?"** the assassin asked. He was without a doubt impressed by the chefs' capability.

Minerva giggled and joked, **"We'll have to ask the cooks about this. They're the experts!"** Ronan looked at her with a jokingly questioning look.

After they finished eating the steaks, Betty returned and asked, **"How was your meal?"**

**"It was pretty delicious,"** said Minerva with a satisfied smile.

**"Great!"** exclaimed the delighted waitress. **"I'm glad you enjoyed it. Think you all have room for dessert?" **

Ronan replied, **"I think so. Two slices of your finest dessert."** He sounded like he was in a good mood and wanting kick it up a knotch. He finished off his sparkling drink and poured a little more from the bottle.

**"Okay then, I will be right back,"** said Betty. When went into the kitchen to tell the chefs to make the final order.

Minerva pictured a some kind of fancy dessert in her mind and asked, **"Finest dessert? I wonder what that will be?"**

After a little while, the waitress returned with two plates of white chocolate pecan pie, both of which had vanilla ice cream. She set them down on the table and said, **"Here you go! Enjoy and I will return with the bill."**Then she left again.

Minerva took up the spoon and scooped a piece of the pie. She ate it and nodded her head. **"Mmm, tasty,"** she commented.

Ronan had a taste of his slice and he liked it. **"Not bad at all. All in all, very delicious meal,"** he commented, satisfied with the result.

The woman replied, **"They make some delicious food. I'll probably have to come back again next time."** She smiled and looked back at him. He was handsome, generous, and heroic; just a few words to describe a man like him her mind.

When dessert was over, Betty returned with a black leather booklet in hand. She placed it on the table and said, **"Here's your bill for all the meals you've eaten. Be sure to put your payment in the booklet and turn it in to the cashier."** Then she left to go serve her new customers.

Ronan took the bill and put some of his remaining money inside it. **"Shall we go for a walk?"** He asked as he got up from his seat.

**"Sure!"** said Minerva. Then they took the bill to the cashier and went with outside the door.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I facepalmed at myself when I missed the last sentence of this post during the roleplay: (see link in the DeviantArt version) It would have made the RP more realistic if I had Mr. Yager decline to give in to Ronan &amp; Minerva's words and instead teach them over a week. And sorry for some parts of this chapter and the previous one being slackish, I was bored while RPing and making the chapters. I didn't do much to add details to them. Also, LordTorch and I went to google and picked out some fancy clothes for our characters. For Ronan, he went with this: (see link in the DeviantArt version) and for Minerva, I went with (see link in the DeviantArt version). I also had some other dresses from the closet that I drew and color with color pencils: (see link in the DeviantArt version)

Mr. Yager and Betty (c) me  
Rick (c) LordTorch18


	39. The Vampire Family

**Chapter 38: The Vampire Family**

Minerva and Ronan went out the door of the restaurant and noticed that Drake was sleeping. The woman ignored the dragon asked the man, **"So which way will we go?"**

Ronan looked down both ways before suggesting, **"Let's go this way."** He gripped her hand and started to walk left from the restaurant. The city in its redesigned form had a different feel in the night compared to its old self. For one, it wasn't fantastic like the many electric lights and the light posts were a little less bright. But it didn't bother the woman anyway. As long as she was with Ronan, she'll be alright. The assassin commented, **"The nights never grow quiet in the city... it's better near your house. Silence is blissful."**

**"Really now?"** asked Minerva about silence. **"I guess it can be a good thing like that. It makes you relaxed with your mind at peace."**

The man smirked and said, **"It also gives you a lot to think about. Past, present, future... all of it. I think we'll be pretty successful with our school. This night with you is quite amazing. The longer I'm around you, the more at peace I feel. I don't feel lonely or lost." **

From the way he spoke, it sounded like he had fallen in love with her. Minerva giggled adoringly in response. Then she said in a bit of a playful manner, **"Aww, you must really really like me! Tell me Ronan, do you love me?"**

Ronan smirked and then stopped when they were in a small park in the city. He answered, **"If I were to say yes... could you look me in the eye and tell me you loved me, too?"** He looked her in the eyes; he seemed to be completely serious. He took hold of both of her hands.

Minerva thought how to answer this. Sure it's been today and yesterday since they first met. It seemed too early for him to fall in love quickly, but maybe that was because he's never been around women too much. So he's inexperienced when it comes to love. But on the good side, he's genuinely a good guy. He saved her twice and saved the ADR, too. So perhaps it's safe to return her feelings for him. **"Of course, I love you too, Ronan,"** said the smiling woman. She herself was inexperienced at romance, but together, the two of them would make it perfect.

The man smiled in return and replied, **"I've never had feelings for a woman... and I don't want this to be a mistake; I'm sure you understand that. We've spent such a short time getting to know each other and yet it's like we're comfortable with each other. If this is what is right, I will do anything to keep it from going wrong."**

Minerva nodded, **"And so will I, Ronan. I have a feeling that you and I will be one of the best couples in the world. But we must work to make it happen. Today was our first steps, tomorrow and the days after will see how this goes. Let's do our best, Ronan; the both of us."**

His smile grew quite wide and he said, **"Let's go home."**

**"Okay,"** replied the woman. They walked back to the restaurant, where Drake was just waking from his nap. He stayed laying down as he looked at the restaurant, seemingly waiting for the pair to get out. Going up to him, Minerva said, **"Hello again, Drake. Did you enjoy your after-dinner nap?"**

The dragon looked a bit surprised to see them coming, not from the restaurant, but from down the street. He nodded and replied, **"I did. You two seem like you enjoyed yourself."**

**"We did,"** said Minerva, smiling in response.

Ronan patted his friend's shoulder and said,** "Time to go home, big guy."** Drake let them get on him before the man cut the rope and the two humans hopped onto his back. They took off back to Minerva's house and landed at the front yard. The woman went to unlock the door and held it open for her date. **"After you!"** she said, repaying him for all the helpful things he did.

As Drake went around the house to the backyard, Ronan slipped a kiss on her cheek as he walked past her and inside. **"I might turn in early, it's been a long day. Goodnight, Minerva,"** he smiled before he went upstairs to his room.

The woman watched him go said after him, **"Goodnight to you, too."** Then she went upstairs to the bathroom to brush her teeth and take a shower. After that, she went to her room and put on her nightgown. The woman turned off the light and got under the covers of her bed to sleep. Tomorrow, she would be expecting a call from David to hear if he got the blueprint done.

* * *

Now that it was two hours before midnight, the "humans" had decided to take a rest for now until tomorrow. Atlas turned back into a dragon, so that she won't fall victim to nocturnal animals or other dragons who might mistake her for a human. She didn't imagine sleeping in her armor to be a comfortable thing, but at least it'll add to her protection should she get attacked by people like Spinx overnight. The dragoness looked at Axle, who was sitting back against a tree, and see how he was doing. They haven't talked much since his rage over Valinora's death. It seems he was too intent on getting revenge on Dracul. Come to think of it, it was almost like when she planned to avenge Flarina by killing all the hybrids. Out of sympathy, she thought, _'Don't worry Axle, I'll help you to avenge Valinora and make that bastard pay.' _Then she looked away off into space and thought about her nieces back in the village. She use telepathy to check on them now, _'Danielle, Kylie, it's your Aunt Atlas. How are you two doing?'_

The voices came back to her with the sisters simultaneously speaking, _'We're fine, Aunt Atlas!'_

Then Danielle spoke happily, _'We made some new friends!'_

The magi smiled, glad that her nieces were having their first social interaction with dragons their age. She asked, _'Really now? Who are they?'_

Kylie, whose telepathy was only connected to her aunt and not her sister, asked in confusion, _'Who's they?'_

The whiptail answered the names, _'Mevelle, Pendra, Pinky, and Smasp.'_

Atlas commented, _'Wow, that's a lot of friends. Did you all play any games?'_ Then she said to the balloon hatchling, _'Your friends, Kylie.'_

_'Oh,'_ replied Kylie.

_'Yes we did,'_ answered Danielle. _'We playfighted and played Kylie Ball.'_

The magi was glad to hear about their day and said, _'That sounds fun! So are you two enjoying your stay over at the village?' _

_'Yep!'_ beamed the sisters.

_'Well that's wonderful!'_ said Atlas. _'You two take care now and contact me if you need anything, alright?'_

The sisters replied, _'Yes Aunt Atlas!'_ Then their telepathy was over and the dragoness was about to lay her head down to sleep.

But she was interrupted by Axle asking, **"Atlas, tell me something. You ever wonder if you did something, it was for the best?"** She turned her attention towards him to see him looking off into the sky as if he was thinking about this.

The dragoness searched through her memories to look for one such case. It took her to the past where she fought and killed many dragons in the annual tournaments to prevent her slave master from killing the mint dragon, Snively. **"You mean like a choice you would regret?"** she asked. **"Yeah, I've been there before..."** She looked off to the side for a bit and murmured quietly, **"Lots of times."**

Then she heard the man say in a puzzled tone, **"I question my own actions after I have had time to think. I promise to protect the helpless and life itself, yet I just swear to kill Dracul."**

Atlas turned her head back to him. She knew her friend was feeling hesitant to kill the tyrannical ruler who brought misery to all. But she also knew that if Dracul was no more, then all the suffering will stop and peace will come back. The magi advised, **"Well Axle, I know you're troubled by this. But-" **Suddenly, she was interrupted by an arrow made out of blue wood that hit the tree Axle sat against. The magi dropped her mouth in surprise and cast her fire aura. She looked around for the shooter who tried to assassinate the man. She used the light from her aura to see through the darkness, even turning around to look behind her. But the shooter was nowhere in sight; the shooter must have quickly escaped to avoid being seen.

The magi was about to go after them, when Axle told her, **"Atlas stay here."** He sounds like he wanted her to follow him, but keep to the shadows. The magi obeyed and watched him disappear into the darkness, the way the arrow came from. But Atlas had a bad feeling about this and for good reason, too. She had seen Axle fight and get knocked out a few times before to know where this was going. The white dragon lord may be combative, but he was fragile like all the other whites. No way was she going to leave him alone; he needed to be protected, even if he says otherwise. The magi dispelled her fire aura to remove the light that would expose herself to the enemy. Only the moonlight would show her way, while letting her blend with the darkness. Atlas followed Axle, using her sense of smell to keep track of him and keeping her footsteps as quiet as she can.

After following Axle for about 10 minutes, Atlas smelled a really strange scent up ahead. It was bitter and kind of sickeningly sweet. She stopped a few feet behind the trees bordering the foggy small clearing, while the man stepped into the space. It seemed like it was a trap in that small clearing. There in the middle of the clearing was two young girls that was sitting on a rock; they were the source of the scent the magi smelled. Both had skin tight black leather on to cloth their body, blood red eyes and pale skin; but both carried different weapons. One had a bow that was so white, even in the dark it was clearly seen, but there was no arrow quiver. The other had two swords that look like it was made out of cherry color gold, but the sheaths had only three straps to hold the swords on her back in their X pattern.

The girl on the right with the sword almost giggled and said, **"****Oh look sister, the banished white lord came like we asked. I guess your aim was well on the spot."**

The girl with the bow giggled back to her sister, **"I guess when someone you know is endanger you more likely will coming to hear the message that might be passed."**

Atlas tilted her head slightly to the side and curiously wondered, _'Message? What message?'_

A third voice came from the trees behind Axle, **"Dears, didn't I teach you not to play with your food? It's not good manners."** Another woman came from the tree line fully armored in another very white armor that can be clearly seen, almost blending in with her pale skin if her blood red eyes were not a give-away.

Both girls lowered their head down and replied at the same time, **"Sorry mother."**

Axle snapped at them, which seem to get all their attentions, **"So are you just going to waste my time with petty talk or are you going to relay the message?"** The mother came up to the man, who still did not turn around, and poked her head right up to his left ear.

Atlas couldn't hear what she was whispering to him. _'What the hell are you saying?'_ she wondered, wanting to know.

Then the woman pulled her head back from Axle's ear and grinned, **"Now since the message have been delivered, we are free to do what we please."**

The man asked them, **"And what is it you three plan on doing?"** The girls got down from the rock and spread out creating a triangle around him.

The girl with the bow grinned a now huge toothy smile and said, **"Is it not obsessive? We have not eaten recently and we are quite hungry; and you smell quite good, age by years and scent of others."**

The magi's urge to attack started to rise as Atlas bared her teeth and thought, _'Oh no you don't! Not on my watch!' _If any of them pulled one wrong, then they were all in for a world of hurt.

But then Axle told her without looking her way, _'Atlas, stay out of this one, Whatever you are about to see or hear, do not engage with these three. They are my problem and my alone.'_

The magi was surprised to hear that the man knew she had followed him. She looked at the humans and then back at her friend. Well they were just a couple of kids and one adult, something much easier than a gang of mercenaries and an enemy dragon, but…_ 'You sure about this, Axle?'_ she asked skeptically.

**"So I take it you want to try and eat me. Well bad news-"** Axle started to say as the mother slid a collar that was purple metal around his neck; it suddenly glowed red. Atlas growled silently, thinking that was a slave collar they just put on him. Axle reacted almost on instance and elbowed the woman right in the chest, causing her to stagger back a bit. **"I'm not on the menu for a meal for vampires,"** he snarled at the three.

Hearing what the man called them, Atlas guessed that explained why these humans bore unusual scents. She thought, _'Vampires, huh? Didn't think a vampire dragon's venom would affect humans, too.'_

The man rubbed his figures on the collar and said, **"Well now. You have come prepared with an anti-magic collar with the ability to block communications from other dragons, cleaver really, but sadly not even worth it."**

The girls pulled their weapons out as fog dipped from the bow and the swords seem to have energy flow from it. The mother also pulled out two daggers that suddenly caught on fire. **"Remember girls, he is still well trained in fighting; and try not to spill to much blood,"** the mother said. Both the girls nodded their heads as they now bared closer to their food in the middle.

The magi sensed magic from them. _'Crap, magic weapons. I don't think he'll be able to handle these humans,'_ she thought, not liking this situation.

**"Normally I would try to avoid taking life from the living, but you three,"** Axle said as the girl with the swords took a swing at him. He ducked under the blade and grabbed her arm, twisted it and came really close to her, but not quite within biting range. **"You're already dead, so there will be no regret with my actions here,"** he said to them as his reaction caught the girl with the swords off guard. Atlas just stood there and watched, waiting for the right time where she could get into the fight. She wanted to trust Axle to handle these fiends himself, but she predicted that his outcome will go just like every fight he's been in.

The girl that Axle was up against try to get out of his grip, but his hand seemed locked around her elbow. **"So tell me, human or halfling?"** Axle asked them as none of them made a move for a few seconds.

The mother said,** "Does it matter? All of it still ended the same."** With lighting quick speed, she went to slash at Axle with her flaming dagger. But the man twisted the girl's body so she was a shield and the woman slashed across her back instead. The girl screamed in pain as she drop both of the swords. As the blades stabbed into the ground, the mother's eyes kind of widened up. Axle kicked the girl into the mother causing them both to fall to the ground. The girl with the bow shot an arrow, which came from out of nowhere, with its blue wooden shaft. But it missed its true mark, just barely brushing across the man's cheek leaving a small slash across his face. He grabbed the swords and they seemed to react different to his presence, almost like they were pleased to be held by him.

**"Telmasta va lumaga,"** Axle said out loud, sounding almost like a chant. A slash across his chest appeared out of nowhere as blood seemed to flow from it. He panted a bit, but the sword energy changed at an instance as now a visible bright blue energy appeared.

**"You are really insane to think that will save you, meal,"** the mother said as she got to her feet with her daughter now up on her feet. All three of them started their full scale attack on Axle, going their full speed, sometimes becoming a blur. The man, it seems, was barely keeping up with them as the blade clashed with the flame daggers and arrows. The arrows seemed to shatter like ice when he hit them. The girl, who lost the swords to Axle, tackled him to the ground and pinned his arms down with her knees. However this did not last long as he managed to throw her off with his legs. He quickly bounced to his feet like a spring. The vampires keep up their onslaught on Axle, but not quite landing a hit. This went for about a good thirty minutes before the mother manage to kick him hard in the chest and send him crashing into a tree.

**"Mother, he's a pest, just does not want-"** the girl with the bow said before Axle seemed to come out of nowhere and hit her with the back of the blades. He grabbed the bow and placed it across his back. It too seemed to reacted like it was pleased to be held by the man.

**"Falcon speed,"** Axle said out loud as another cut have appeared on his back. This caused him to cough up blood a bit from the price he had to pay. The mother took the chance to attack Axle from his now new wound, but he noticed her and swung the blade around, just coming shy of her throat as she jump back from his wide slash. The girls took the opportunity to come from the man's side and grab his arms and try to pin them behind his back. The mother took on full speed again with her dagger poised to kill. Axle poised his feet at an angle and spun quickly, which it seemed the girls did not have great stance to stop him from doing so. He took the right sword and slashed it up the armor of the mother.

The loud sound of metal meeting metal sound ring as the mother jumped back. **"Damn it girls, can you not do anything right?"** the woman snapped at her children as they both started to get up.

**"We're sorry, mother," **they said in sync, with a bit of fear in their voice.

Axle threw the swords into the air and pulled the bow off his back, **"Es valatmos Luna."** With those words, two slashes appeared on his arms as more blood drip from them. **"Raven Feathers,"** the man said as he pulled the bow string back. An arrow appeared and he released it. It split into hundreds of arrows as soon as it left the bow, flying to meet their marks. The mother dashed quickly and avoided the arrows, but the girls were not so lucky as one got pinned to a tree, while the other got struck with multiple arrows and fell to the ground. Axle fell to his knee as he coughed up more blood. He still dodged the mother's dagger as she slid a bit across the ground. Across his right eye, a new cut haves appeared. Although Atlas was pleased with his prowess in battle, she did not like the costs he paid for each new power and wanted to burst into the fight before he would get badly harmed again.

The mother was pissed and said, **"Damn it, dragon. Why don't you just let us have a meal from you?! It would have not hurt that long."** Axle however was starting to pant hard now as his body was covered in his own blood. She took a run at him again with her daggers poised to kill. The man closed his eyes as if he was expecting death to come and take him.

Now seeing that her charge was in danger, Atlas broke passed the border of the trees and shouted, **"Axle!"** She was aiming to rescue him, but someone else did it first.

It was a halfling man, who floated above ground with a pike touching the ground blocking the mother. **"Axle, you are worthless,"** he said in a voice that sounded familiar.

It wasn't just his voice that got the magi riled up; there was something about his scent, too. **"Arch!"** she cried, not happy to see him.

The halfling then spoke to the vampires, **"And did we ever give you permission to attempt to kill Axle? I do not think so."** Axle opened his eyes and saw his enemy protecting him. Arch spun the pike around and sent the woman right over to the girls, knocking the helmet off her head as it hit the ground. **"Let me show you how a dragon lord fights you three disobedient dogs,"** Arch snapped at the three vampires before he went at flight speed across the mist. The mother was barely on her feet when the pike hit her in the side. Lighting flowed from the pike and hit its mark, leaving a trail of smoke from the woman. She cried in pain loudly as she crashed in a tree.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Atlas went over to her friend and asked, **"You alright, Axle?"**

Arch snarled at the family with an evil grin, **"You think you can die here, vampires? I have yet to start a warm up, so get up. Let me have some fun."** He picked up the girl who was on the ground, tossed her up and hit her hard with the shaft of his pike, causing the girl to scream even in more pain. The girl that was pinned to the tree managed to free herself and went to attack Arch, who in return, hit her with the wooden end of the shaft. She went flying in one of the direction and rolled across the ground as the halfling walked up to her and picked her up by her neck. She struggled to try and free herself from his grip. He stabbed his pike in the ground and pulled out a small knife which had golden trim on it. He moved it close to her chest and ran it across the leather. **"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with knifes? You never know you might just cut yourself,"** he said as she slowly slid the knife across her chest. She screamed in pain as the gash became bigger. The girl made a fist with her hand and punch Arch in the chest hard, but made no effect what-so-ever on him. **"You really are a dense bitch,"** said the halfling as his grin got bigger, almost like he was enjoying himself. He threw the girl over with the mother and the other girl. All them seemed terrified with Arch now.**"No, no, no. That will never do. I have to take you back personally and show a much 'grander time'. I would never let my fun die that fast; but for now, a bit of shock and jabs here and there will do for now."**Arch seemed to be very much enjoying this. He grabbed his pike, raised it and brought it down, however it never touched the three vampires.

Axle got up with both the swords in his hands and said, **"Falcon speed."** Another slashed appeared on his back, causing him once again to cough up blood. Then he rushed fast to block the pike and save the vampires' lives.

The surprised Atlas yelled, **"Axle, what the hell?!"** To her, this was insane. These vampires tried to eat him, plus he said they were already dead, so why bother to save these creatures? If she had been Axle, she would have been more than happy to let the vampires suffer.

The "human" snarled at the halfling, **"Arch, I will not stand idly by and watch even the undead to be tortured by you and your messed up ways."**

Arch simple frowned at him and said, **"You're lucky we need you alive or I would just end your life here and now."** He quickly kicked Axle hard in the side, grabbing the swords, dagger, armor, and the bow and teleported away. The girl with the slash in her chest was the first to get up and searched her mother for something before finding the key to the man's collar. She rushed over to Axle, bent down and unlocked the collar from around his neck. She picked up his head sat down and placed it in her lap as she watched Axle's wounds start to heal.

**"Why did you stand up for us even when we did try to kill you?"** she asked Axle, who seemed to still be awake.

**"Because it who I am,"** he replied back to her with a slight smile.

Atlas went over to his side and said to him, **"Damn right; a fool who even risks his life for even the bad guys."** She couldn't care less if the vampires were tortured or not, but she was still wary in that they'll end up attacking him again. She demanded to know from the girl, **"Alright you mangy dragon-eater, what's this about those iron-clawed bastards ****needing Axle alive?"**

The vampire girl looked up and said, **"Two things: one, it was never my interest to sink my fangs into him. It was mother and Ice's idea. If it was up to me, I would have just passed the message on and left to hunt for a deer or something small like a rabbit."** She turned and looked at where the mother and the other girl laid at.** "I never want to be a vampire, just want a normal life,"** she said as she looked down at Axle, whose eyes were closed. **"As for the reason why Dracul want him alive, all I know is that if he does not make it to the mountain in the next twenty two hours, they were going to put his adopted daughter, Akil, in Dracul's new games. That is also where I was turn into this."** She sounded like she meant it.

**"What?"** Atlas asked. First, Dracul sends Marc and Spinx to kill his nephew, now he wants him to go to the mountain? Something was not right here and the magi had a bad feeling about this. Her thoughts were interrupted by the mother vampire who was angry with her daughter

**"Why you un-grateful girl,"** a snarl came from the mother that sent a panic look into the girl with Axle. She struggled to her feet. **"You went and un-collared our meal and let another dragon into the area. You can't ever do anything right. You are worthless to the point I should have let you die that day. I will rectify that action."**

The woman took off at full speed to slash as the girl, but what she slashed was a white hide side of Axle's head. He had turned into his dragon form and was curled up around the girl, who took it as a surprise. The look in his eyes told a different story. Atlas glared and growled at the mother for hurting the banished lord. Axle snarled at the woman and Ice, **"You best leave before I let her have her way with you two."** Ice was on her feet like a bullet and high tailed it out.

The mother hissed at him before she too took off into the woods. She stopped at the edge of the woods. **"Don't think this is over; I will be back for my revenge against you and Arch. I will also punish that child as I see fit when I do,"** she snarled back before taking off.

**"Atlas,"** the white dragon said as he turned his head to her. **"What she said is true. Dracul sent them for the message to be sent. And judging on how Arch reacted to that, Dracul really never trusted the vampires to being with. I'm still puzzled though,"** he said as he got up and now turned his attention to the girl vampire. **"That collar there. Who gave it to you three?"** Axle asked her.

The vampire girl turned and picked up the collar. **"A man by the name of Zero. He also was the one who gave us the weapons,"** she said as she looked down at it.

Axle asked, **"Well that about it on my questions. Atlas anything?"**

The magi said to them while eyeing the girl, **"Yeah I got one. Who the hell are you?"**

**"My original name was Firoa Telmon; my current name is Violet Ruby,"** the girl said as she stood up, she still held the collar. **"Your lordship, what is it you want me to do with this?"** she asked Axle as she held out the collar.

The dragon asked,** "Does that woman have any mental connection with you at all?"**

Violet sighed, **"Yes she does, because she is the one who changed me."**

**"Then put it on. Look, I know wearing a collar is not great and all, but that collar itself blocks mental connection and suppresses magic. However I rather not have her tailing you around without you knowing,"** Axle said as he looked over at the woods.

Atlas found that to be a very secure idea that would benefit both the dragons. _'Good thinking, Axle. Keep her weak, so that she doesn't turn on us,' _she thought.

The dragon continued, **"Also that woman did not go very far away from here either. She maybe about hundred meters or so from here and is staying there, waiting." **It was obvious from the how mildly thick the scent was.

The magi snorted, **"Hmph! If she ever tries to jump us, she's getting toasted."** A fire beam would literal toast the vampires, while a light beam would totally finish them off.

Violet slid the collar around her neck, after a few seconds of hesitation. It clicked and glowed red for a second before dimming out again. **"Atlas. You are going to be pissed at me all you want, but I think it might be a better idea to keep her with us for the time being. Though the problem is daylight with her,"** Axle said and Violet seemed to jump on that idea.

**"Um, I can walk among daylight. I was the only one who could among vampires, minus a dragon by the name," **the girl started to say before the dragon glared at her, which made her stop.

Atlas wondered who she was talking about until she quickly realized that it was Drago. _'Oh him,'_ she thought.

**"Noted. Atlas, she is staying with us till I say otherwise,"** Axle said as he turned and started to walk away, back towards where he left his ruby red knife at. Violet came up beside him.

The magi replied, **"Fine, just as long as she doesn't try to stab us in the back."** She still didn't trust Violet and she hoped that the white was right about her.

After about 10 minutes of walking back to their original location, Axle changed to his human form and picked up his knife. **"We might as well get some rest here Atlas. Who knows what Dracul is planning, but whatever it is, it nothing good that for sure,"** he said as he climbed up into the large oak tree the arrow got stuck into about an hour ago.

**"Yeah, I know,"** said the magi who started to lay down on the ground.

**"Violet, take watch,"** the man called down to her as she scattered into another tree not far. He sat down on the branch big enough for him to sleep on and leaned against the trunk of the tree. He simply look up at the stars, looking almost as if he was on edge still about something.

Atlas was skeptical of letting the girl, who attacked them earlier, guard them through the night. But even if she tried to warn Axle, that man, will probably say something like 'who else will watch over them' and reason that they need energy for the morning. Plus, he appeared to trust the girl so much. The magi narrowed her eyes at the tree Violet was in and thought, _'You better not pull any rotten tricks while we sleep.'_ She cast a tracking spell on Axle, so that she can wake up in time should anything bad happen. Then the dragoness went to sleep.

* * *

**Author's Note:** It's refreshing to get back to Atlas's story after having no action scenes in chapter 37. Anyway, can't wait to see what Dracul and Arch's evil plan is once we get to Trident Mountain. Next chapter, we're going to see what Aeolus and maybe Kathia are up to during the night before we go to the next day. Oh and Enkaharal's birthday story is up on my DeviantArt account. No need to log on to see it.

Mevelle, Pinky, Pendra and Smasp (c) me  
Violet, Ice, Akil and Zero (c) Lorddracon8967


	40. Trying Out New Spells

**Chapter 39: Trying Out New Spells**

Kathia was outside at the spot where the cook had buried the remains of the sweetling hatchling. She held the cellphone in her hand, overlooking the steps to do the spell that would allow her to see ghosts. She looked at the ground and hoped that the soil over the corpse would count as grave dirt. _'It better,'_ she thought, not liking the thought of having dirt in her eyes for nothing. She knelt down and used a shovel to scoop up a hand full of soil. Then she dipped her hand in the bowl of water to wet her fingers. After that, she touched the soil get a little bit on her fingers. Once that was done, she brought her hand close to her face, particularly the eyes. She stared at her fingers nervously, knowing that this was going to sting her eyes. She slowly moved her fingers closer and closer. Then she opened her eyes wide and braved herself to touch the grave dirt to her eyes. She winced, brought her fingers away and closed her stinging eyes. "Oh gods," she murmured under her breath.

She kept her eyes shut and rubbed the remaining dirt off her eyelids with the back of her hands. She let the grave dirt on her eyes sit there for a few seconds before she looked back to her cellphone. It said that to test to see if the ritual had worked, she must perform the ghost summon spell. Kathia followed the steps to this spell and then attempted to do it herself. She put her arms out and then slowly brought them to herself. She thought about which ghosts she wanted to see; her parents. She channeled that thought into her spell and said, **"Souls of my parents, please come back to this living world to see your dear daughter."** Instantly, two white translucent forms slowly appeared out of thin air in front of the girl. They were Kathia's parent. The girl smiled at them and greeted, **"Hello, mom and daddy. It's good to see you again."**

Mrs. Rittevon smiled and greeted, **"We missed you, dear. And I know you missed us as well. We wanted to be there to comfort you when you were crying for us a few days ago."**

**"You were watching over me?"** asked the girl. She heard many times about spirits of the deceased watching over their loved ones; looks like it was true after all.

**"Yes we were,"** confirmed Mr. Rittevon. **"We saw you swearing revenge, learning magic, trying to kill dragons and teaming up with this Jason man to build a city and unite all people against the dragons."** Then he sounded a bit impressed as he crossed his arms. **"I must say; it looks you inherited your old man's ambition."** Kathia felt praised by his comment. The man continued, **"Now I don't mind you using my company to build these people homes. In fact, I like how you're keeping it alive under the dragons' takeover of construction. And I certainly don't mind you learning and teaching people magic. The only thing I don't want you to do is going out trying to kill every dragon in sight."**

**"What?!"** the girl said in shock.

The father told her sternly, **"You heard me; stop this foolishness. I've seen you get hurt twice and I don't want you to put your life in danger again."**

The mother added to the conversation, **"You have no idea how worried we were when that black dragon nearly got killed. I was almost in tears. I wasn't sure if you live or not."**

Mr. Rittevon spoke again, **"That's how much you scared us, Kathia. Listen, I made you heir to the company and I need you alive to keep it going. Not only that, but we love you too much to see you get hurt."**

The mother begged, **"Please Kathia, don't try to avenge us. Just live your life peacefully. Do it for us." **

Kathia considered whether to listen to her parents or not. Sure she loved them so much that she would do anything for them. But however, she also was aware that so many people in this region lost their loved ones. The world will continue to suffer as long as dragons continued their rampage. She needed to help these people to keep them from going through what she did. The girl shook her head and declined, **"Mom, daddy, I really want to do what you say. But I need to be a fighter for these people around the world. Someone's got to take down the dragons and I want to help out in this cause."**

Mr. Rittevon warned her seriously,**"Kathia, think about what you're doing!"**

**"I am,"** replied the girl, who was strong in her resolve.**"And don't worry; I'll just start with lone weak dragons until I can handle them with ease. When that happens, I'll be strong enough to take out the tougher dragons and then eventually hordes of them. I'll also have Jason on the others to back me up against them. Together, we'll all grow strong and save the world!"**

The parents were stunned to see their daughter go against their wish. The mother murmured to her husband, **"My gods, she really does have your stubborness."**

Kathia continued, **"Besides, The dream recall spell had a prophecy where I would bring the dragons to their downfall and humans will prosper again. I am so going to make that come true, no matter what! I'm going to be a hero!"**

The father tried to talk sense into his daughter, **"Kathia, it's just a dream; you don't know if it's going to come true or not."**

**"Well I for one, believe in it!"** the girl spoke back. She was getting annoyed that her parents won't trust her to do her mission. **"I'm going to do whatever I want and I'm not going to let anybody stop me; not even my own parents!"**

The parents were shocked by her defiance as the mother placed her hands on her mouth and gasped. Mr. Rittevon got angry and yelled, **"Kathia, you... you disgraceful girl! If I was alive right now, you would be grounded, do you hear me? Grounded!" **The girl didn't even care in the slightest. After all, he was just a simple ghost and he can't do anything to her. As the spirit continued to scold, the girl scrolled down on the cellphone to read how to banish ghosts. Once she read the instructions, Kathia held her hand out at her parents and willed her parents away. The ghosts disappeared from sight as they were back into the spirit realm.

Kathia picked up her stuff and turned around. Under her breath, she murmured with a confident smile, **"Don't worry mom and daddy, you won't be disappointed with me."** She made her way back to her tent and set the things in the far corner. Then she went into her sleeping bag and started to sleep. Tomorrow, she was going to teach her students, the ghost seeing spell.

* * *

Throughout the rest of the day, Aeolus had his horde training against many of their fellow soldiers to get the combat experience they needed against various breeds of dragons. During that same day, the horde leader was contacted by Salvo, who finally made his decision. He and his clan wanted to join the horde. So Aeolus has his magi dragons teleport them over to the desert, where he then informed the clan about everything about their current agenda, which must be kept secret from Atlas and the dragon lords. Then night finally came and the daytime members of the horde went to sleep in the village. The cave where Juna tested them was the perfect place to hold many dragons. Aeolus organized the nocturnal members of the horde on sparring and guarding the village. While they did their tasks, Aeolus and Gneiss had went outside the village to test out the transformation spell that Atlas told him about the night before. The horde leader had brought his cousin with him to watch how he transformed and help correct his mistakes, so that his human form would be perfect. Aeolus recalled what the magi had said last night about the spell and said, **"So according to her, I need to imagine myself as a human in many details and change my weight and size. This is harder than it sounds, which is why I brought you here with me."**

Gneiss asked, **"So you're going to try this spell out by yourself, huh? Why not bring the rest of the horde, so we can all learn together?"  
**  
The horde leader understood that his cousin thought it would a pretty efficient way for everyone to be able to turn human. But however, that was not the case. He explained, **"Because we don't know if Juna or Mekarth will wake up any time and find the lack of scents in the village. I need to keep them in a state of security, so that they don't get suspicious as to what we're doing."**

The green dragon nodded his head understandingly and replied, **"Ah, I see. That's pretty sneaky."**

The horde leader told him, **"Now I'm going to start transforming now. Watch me carefully and see if I'm doing this right."** He didn't want to end up hurting himself if his bone structure got into an awkward shape. The disaster dragon made a mental picture of a human he already decided he was going to look like. An olive-skinned man in a dark gray business suit with matching pats, a white dress shirt underneath, sleek black shoes and a green tie. The man would have graying black hair in a comb-over style, a gray circle beard, and dark hazel eyes. It was a grudging shame that he would have to resemble one of the upper-class slavers, considering they were one of the causes to his post woes. But Aeolus also knew that this form would give him status among humans and easily earn their trust more so than he would have as someone who looked like they were middle-class or lower. After all, humans tend to see the rich as the least threatening and tend to admire them more, while the poor were seen as dirty savages and beneath them. Such was the psychological and sociological snobbery of humans. With the appearance chosen, the horde leader began to rear up on two legs and turn himself into that man. His body shrunk down in size as his wings, horns and tail sunk into his body. His green scales turned into olive tan skin, hair and clothes. And his body went from quadrupedal to bipedal. After the transformation was complete, Aeolus looked at his new form to make sure that he got everything right. Already, he found a mistake; his dragon claws were on his fingers. The man imagined the fingernails and willed his claws to turn into them. With that done, he looked up at his cousin and asked, **"Gneiss, how do I look?"**

The green dragon crouched down to his cousin's level and eyed the man's body. He commented, **"You look a little too big, like over seven feet tall. You should shrink yourself a bit."**

Aeolus closed his eyes and willed his body size down by two feet. Then he reopened his eyes and asked, **"Am I the right size yet?"**

Gneiss paused briefly to check the height of his cousin. Then with a nod, he answered, **"Yes."** The horde leader looked at himself from the ground to his eye level, where he measured himself to his cousin. This was the size he needed to remember for his human form. Then Gneiss told him, **"Now let's see how you walk."** Aeolus took a step forward and stopped to feel his position. For a moment, it felt like he was going to fall over, but his spine's balance prevented him from doing so. Then he took another careful step forward and paused again before taking a few more. It felt awkward to be walking on two legs upright like this. But he knew that he would get used to it in time as long as he practiced. Gneiss watched him move carefully and said, **"You look like a human baby taking its first steps."**

**"I know,"** said the horde leader. **"I need to take it easy, so that I can understand how to move around in this form."**

**"Okay,"** the green said.

Pretty soon, the man stopped pausing every step and just walked slowly. He was beginning to get the hang of it, but still hasn't mastered it yet. As Aeolus continued to move, he moved his arms up and around to see how these limbs functioned. Then he flexed his elbows, bringing them towards himself and moving them back straight like a stick a few times. And lastly, the man started to play with his hands' functions. He moved his fingers like snakes moving their heads in erratic ways. He bent their joints and saw the fingers closing in to his palms. Then he turned his wrists around to see how far they can turn. Aeolus noticed the only way he would be able to see the back and palms of his hands were to turn them in the direction that faced his body. Now that he was finished checking out his body, the horde leader said thoughtfully,**"I see how the human body functions now. But even one night won't be enough for me to learn everything. There may be a few things I haven't tried yet, but they will be discovered in time." **Then the man turned back into his dragon form.

Gneiss agreed and said, **"You know? I'd say you have all the time in the world to be human. But we need to wake up early tomorrow."**

Aeolus agreed and replied, **"That's precisely why we're making this short."** Plus, he was also cautious about the former dragon lords' unexpected awakening while they were away. Even though the guards can tell Juna to telepathically talk to him if she needed something from him, the horde leader suspected that she might get suspicious and try to find out. Then he told his cousin, **"Anyway Gneiss, it's your turn to try out the transformation spell."**

**"Okay, got it,"** said the green. Then he started to shrink down and changed into his human form. Gneiss was now a tan-skinned man with black hair, a mustache, shaved beard and dark brown eyes. He also wore a black shirt with a jolly roger image, a brown leather watchband, blue jeans and gray &amp; green sneakers. The dragon-turned-man tried out his limbs with the same ineptness as his cousin. But this time, he tripped and fell over onto the desert ground. The man pushed his upper body off the ground and stood on back on his feet. He said, **"Darn, this human form really is weird."**

**"I know,"** said Aeolus. The horde leader imagined the other dragons would feel this way after their first try at the spell. **"Anyway, it's time for us to get back. We mustn't waste any more time out here."**

Gneiss replied and asked, **"Okay, but can I walk with you in this form? I could use some more practice on the way." **

The horde leader thought that was a good idea. They get can used to being human on the way home. He nodded and said, **"Of course, you can. I think I should do that as well."** He turned back into his human form before continuing, **"But when we smell our horde, we must turn back into dragons or they'll be alert the others and attack us. And we know we can't have Juna or her brother waking up to what we've been doing."**

The black-shirted man nodded and agreed,**"Right, that will be the last thing we need."** Then the men walked together on their way back to the village. As expected, their walking improved pretty soon and it started to feel normal to them. Then upon smelling dragons, the cousins turned back to normal and proceeded into the village, where they slept in the clan medic's cave.

* * *

After sleeping for an hour, Kathia opened her eyes when she heard a scratching sound at her door. Who or what was there? She got up and saw a rip at the tent's flap. Wondering what was the cause of this, the girl picked up a torch light and turned it on. Then she got out of her sleeping bag and poked her head out the tent. She moved the light left and right, trying to find who left a tear on her tent. There didn't seem to be anybody in sight. But then her search finally spotted something, her lantern found a 22-feet-long green anaconda nearby. Kathia shrieked in fright and dropped her lantern. The girl backed away, not taking her eyes off the snake, as she started channeling her magic energy. Then she zapped out a lightning bolt from her hand at the anaconda to try and kill it. The anaconda was hit by the spell and stopped moving. It was now still without any signs of life.

With the snake struck down, Kathia started to catch her breath and recover from the shock. But apparently, she wasn't out of the woods yet. Someone behind her spoke in a devilish tone, **"Did your parents ever tell you not to damage anyone else's stuff?"**

The girl quickly whipped around and to her shock, saw a very bad man she had been warned about. It was Spinx. **"Ack! Where did you come from?!"** she asked, badly startled as she quickly backed away from him. She nearly tripped over anaconda she had killed or so she thought. Then something started to wrap itself around her legs, squeezing just enough to keep her from moving. Kathia looked down and saw the anaconda; it was still alive. **"Ack!"** the girl cried out in fright.

Spinx simply had that evil grin on his face as he put his sword away and just watched for a second. He said harshly, **"Scream and I will remove that pretty head of yours, girl."**

Thinking the man might be more powerful than her, Kathia decided to heed his thread. She asked warily, **"What do you want with me?"**

The necromancer said with a grin, **"Nothing with you, I was just looking for a place to sleep at for the night. After I will head back to the mountain and ambush my prize there. Your tent provided what I was looking for perfectly. However, there's a problem with you little girl."**

Whatever it was, the girl knew it wasn't going to be any good at all. Feeling her heart race and her body stiff with fear, she asked, **"What?"**

Spinx told her what she had been suspecting, **"You may not know this, but either way you are going to die. Scream or not, you will still be killed no matter what, the question is how?"** The man seemed to be enjoying himself as his pet wrapped around her, becoming ever so tighter that the girl started to feel pained. The necromancer in puzzlement asked himself, **"Squeeze to death, simple rip to shred, eaten, burn to a crisp. So many things I could do, but what to choose?"** Kathia shuddered to think about how painful and torturous a death this vile man was willing to deliver her. He finally had an idea of what to do and said, **"I know. I'll use you as bait, well more of a leverage over my prize and his small band of misfits. I can't simply leave you here, nor move you among this plane, so there is only one thing I can do."** Then suddenly, the anaconda started to sink underground, dragging the poor girl along with it. She let out a terrified scream as she definitely knew she was going to get suffocated or get killed in another way.

Kathia tried thinking up of some spells to save herself fast. The lightning spell? The fire spell? Or the burning touch spell? The last one seemed like the perfect thing to use. The girl shut her eyes tightly and channeled her magic energy in heat that warmed up her body until flames appeared on her. She hoped that would burn the slithering creature alive. Kathia felt the big snake uncurl itself from her, due to the flames licking at it. And strangely, she also felt her feet standing on flat ground. The girl opened her eyes and was surprised to see that she had been taken to a place where there was nothing but fog everywhere. _'Where am I?'_ she wondered, wary of this strange place. The fog slowly started to fade away from the view as a small, yet very peaceful piano solo was being played. Its melody was quite peaceful that it seemed to have washed away some of the girl's fear. Kathia looked around and asked, **"Who's there?"** She took slow steps as to avoid running into danger too soon. As the fog cleared up more and more, it slowly started to reveal a castle in the distance with a rose garden, trees and a fountain, making it almost looking like a royal palace. **"What?"** she asked herself. Her anxiety turned into perplexity as she wondered how and why a place like this would be under ground. She headed towards the castle to see what this place would be like. After about 10 minutes of going closer, the castle came fully into view as now people were walking around the place, almost like servants. Kathia blinked in bewilderment and surprise; what kind of place had Spinx taken her to?

A butler seemed to come from the castle and walked right up to the girl. **"Good evening miss, our master has been expecting you to show. Please if you will be so kind as to follow me,"** he said with a bow before heading back to the castle.

**"Uh okay?"** said the girl. She might as well go along with him since she had no way of getting back to the surface world.

The butler went up to the door, opening it to the grand design of the inside of the castle. The main hall had just about everything to make this place look royal, maybe a bit more. Gold-trimmed walls with almost diamond-looking glass vases as well as lighting to make its warm welcoming. It had tilted floor that reflected the ceiling grand artwork as rooms fan off from it. Kathia stared in admiration at the magnificent design of the interior. Whoever lived in this castle must have been filthy rich. Then they walked up to one of the rooms, where the butler opened the door. It led to a room so massive that it almost seemed to not fit the castle at all. The girl was in wonder of its size. The soft piano song was coming from that room, almost sounding high above. There was even a crowd of not just people, but also dragons and halflings were in there as well. None of them seemed to be undead, but some did look like they were servants. **"Master is inside, please be patient as he finishes his piece. He will be with you moment tartly,"** the butler said to her in a soothing calm voice.**"I will take my leave now and go prepare your room for tonight,"** the butler said as he bowed to her again and walked away down the hallway.

Kathia went to look for someone, a human servant, who was not busy talking to others or doing his/her work. She avoided the dragons and halflings like the plague they are. She wasn't sure if they were slaves or not; they were probably most likely the former since Windfall declared them all to be free. She found a dark tall man who was by himself. After going to him, he looked down at her as she asked, **"Excuse me, sir. But do you know who the master of this place is?"**

The man pointed to the other man and said, **"It's Spinx Talon, well what left of his true self."**

The girl was surprised to see a completely different man, whose appearance was unlike the necromancer that sent her here. He had a crimson red type of hair with a white suit on. He wasn't the sadistic man in black that she knew him to be, but rather an elegant-looking nobleman who seemed to be peaceful. **"That's Spinx?"** Kathia said, staring in perplexity. It was hard to believe that it was the same person.

The soft sound of the piano seemed to come to an end as Spinx got up from his chair and turned to his audience. He bowed to them to show that he was done. This was like a signal for everyone to start leaving peacefully, except for two dragons, a black dragon and a silver dragon seemed to stay around. **"Excab, do you think this is a good idea?"** the silver dragon asked the black dragon.

The black replied, **"We have no other choice. We lost all connection with Axle, Juna and Mekarth. I have no idea what Dracul is planning, so it might be best to ask him to help." **As the audience left, Kathia stood there, waiting for the nobelman to come to her or see what he would do next.

Spinx came from the stage, after people were congratulating him on his performance. He soon made his way to the back of the room and started to talk with the two dragons that seemed to stay around. From the looks of it, it seems that they were a bit pleased at Spinx's reply to them and left with a thank you. He made his way to Kathia and said, **"So, you must be the one 'he' sent here. Pity really, just to be used as bait. So judging from your face, I can guess you have questions to ask."** His assumption was right; Kathia did have a few questions to ask of him. She was curious about how Spinx went from a fine fellow to a mad man. **"Well if you want answers, please follow me. There is little time,"** the man beckoned.

**"Okay, sure,"** the girl replied. Then she followed him over to where he was going.

They went through the main hall, which was empty, even after people just left. They headed into a dinner room where there were two servants, one male and one female. The male was a halfling and the female was human. **"Please take a seat,"** Spinx said as he went to the other end of the table. He sat down in a chair with silver trim and had a scale like texture on it.

Kathia sat at one end of the table. The girl looked at the nobleman and figured that now was the time to ask questions. So she asked, **"So anyway, about your future self. Why does he want me to be the bait? Who is he using me against?"**

The good Spinx said, **"Future self? No child, he and I both exist at the same time. To explain in simple tongue, we, well you, are in what is called the Temporal Plane. Think of it as a place that necromancers keep the undead at until they are summon, well he does.**

Kathia was surprised as if she had just heard something very bizarre. _'I'm in the world of Spinx's undead stash?'_ she thought.

The man continued, **"As for who he will use you against, that is really quite simple. There's a white dragon by the name of Axle Incarus, who just so happen to have an oath to protect anything that lives. Human, dragons, halflings, even the hybrids if they do not pose a threat to him or the city he comes from. Here's the problem, he wants Axle's heart to gain eternal life, which after, he would try to bring ruins to the world you live at."**

_'A dragon's heart makes them immortal?'_ the girl wondered. If that was true, then it was an amazing discovery that mankind could use for their own benefit. She could gather a group of hunters to kill a dragon and then have the big-brained researchers study the recovered heart for clues to give humans immortality. No more people dying of old age; everyone will be young adults forever.

Spinx got up from his chair and walked to the door way. **"As for the reason to use you against a dragon you do not know is to use Axle's own oath against him, forcing him into a position that you would call inhuman. You see, Axle's only really reason to live, even after his own kin was slayed, is to keep to his oath that he have sworn to keep. That is the only reason he lives."** He was about to leave the room before he turn to the maiden servant. **"Make sure she get to her room alright, keep an eye out for the shadows,"** he whispered to her as she simply nodded her head. Spinx soon left afterward, leaving Kathia by herself with the maid.

The girl's thoughts went on about Axle. Even though it was a shame that he was a dragon, she admired him a bit for cherishing human life. She felt sorry that an awful man like the evil Spinx would use a dirty trick against Axle. **"Hmph, I guess that's one good dragon I'm willing to spare,"**she said to herself grudgingly. Well just as long as he didn't interfere with her undeadening of the dragon species, he'll be alright. Then she went to the doorway and asked the maid, **"So where is my room?"**

The maid looked at the girl and nodded her head. **"Yes, it's just up around the corner upstairs. Please follow me,"** the maid said as she smiled. She turned on her heels and they walked a fair pace back into the main hall soon arriving at the staircase. The maid waited a bit for Kathia to catch up before they headed up the stairs. As they walked however, the maid's head seemed to eye at the shadows as they made their way upstairs and banked around the corner. They stopped at the third door on the right and the maid opened it. The bedroom was large with a queen size bed in the right hand corner. The room also looked like it belonged to a noble person with high standards. Kathia was amazed at the grandeur of the bedroom; it felt like a room fit for a king. Then the girl noticed that there was a two people in there. One was a female in a gold dress sitting on a chair over by the door. The other looked like a kid dressed in military uniform leaning against the wall. **"You room miss, um,"** the maid started to say.

The maid was trying to say the girl's game, so the girl answered for her, **"Kathia; my name is Kathia."**

The maid bowed to her. **"These two will protect you for the evening, for things lurk in even the most safest of places,"** she said as she took her leave.

Kathia figured the maid meant that the evil Spinx would have his zombies come here to attack her, or most likely drag her out to use as a bait. The girl looked to the two figures, wanting to know who these people were before she could trust them. She went over to them and asked, **"So you're my guardians, right? Who are you?"**

The woman in the gold dress looked at her and said, **"Yes, we are and my name is Elisabeth. I was once a great mage of unimaginable power, however I was, you could say banished here by my master. That's really all you need to know about me. Over there."** She pointed to the kid leaning against the wall. He could have been no more than fourteen years old. She said, **"His name is Van. I do not know much about him, just the fact he a closed off person."**

Kathia turned her head to Van; she found him just standing there quietly as if he didn't want to talk. **"A quiet one, huh? I guess he's not one for conversations,"** she said to Elisabeth. Then she looked back to the woman and said, **"So the maid said there are things lurking around everywhere, right? Was she talking about Spinx's zombies coming to get me?"**

**"It's nothing for you to worry about tonight. Try and get some sleep, Kathia, so you are not tired in the morning,"** Elisabeth replied back as she walked to the door.

The girl replied, **"Oh alright, fine. I just hope nothing bad happens."**

**"Van has first watch than I. Good night,"** she said as she closed the door. Van still has not moved at all.

**"Good night,"** the girl whispered as she put on spare pajamas. Then she lifted up the covers of the bed and slept under it. She was worried about what tomorrow would be like and hoped that she survived to fulfill her conquest in the future.

* * *

A few hours later, Atlas's sleep was disturbed by some loud groans she was hearing. _'What the heck?'_ she thought. She opened her groggy eyes, trying to get past the pain that was stinging them. Then she forced herself up and cast a light ball and kept it close to her to use as a beacon. The magi went to the tree where Axle slept and saw him tossing and turning. **"Axle?"** she asked in concern, believing that something was wrong with him.

The man tossed a bit more before he woke up. He rubbed his eyes a bit before he yawn. **"I take it that I woke you up. Sorry,"** he said loud enough for her to hear.

**"It's alright,"** said the forgiving magi. She noticed that his eyes looked more scared than sorry as his body seemed to shake a bit. Whatever he just dreamed about, it seemed to have gotten to him a lot. She asked, **"Say, did you have a nightmare or something?"** If he did, maybe she could help him overcome it or something with a good talking.

Axle kind of looked down from Atlas to the ground not far below. **"It was more of a memory of my past. It haunts me and more likely will for the rest of my natural life."** He sounded like he was scared of that past, but more hurt than anything else.

The magi replied, **"Sounds like something bad must have happened back then."**

The the man requested of her, **"Atlas. When we get to Shadow Wind, if we do, promise me you won't get in harm's way."**

Atlas paused for a bit to think. Then she said, **"Well Axle, I don't know if I can keep that promise, being a fighter and all. But I'll do my best."** She smiled confidently and continued, **"After all, I got my teleportation to use, if things get too rough for me. Plus, I'm a great fighter, so I can handle anything those scums throw at me. So no need to worry too much about me, alright?"**

Axle turned his head slightly towards her. He kind of forced a smile a bit. It seemed like he was glad she would put her safety first when they get to Shadow Wind. This little time, his smile quickly faded as he turned his head back to the ground. He still looked a bit down. Not sure what else to say, Atlas said, **"Well uh, time to get back to sleep. We need that energy to travel in the morning. And try not to think too much about that nightmare, alright?"** Then she laid down and went to sleep again.

* * *

**Author's Note:** The part where Kathia mistook the evil Spinx for being the future version of the good Spinx, that was me not paying attention to or remembering what Draco posted on the RP. I'm sure there's more mistakes in the future due to me not having the present written in chapter form. And Lorddraco has picked some theme songs for our characters. Check them out on the Deviantart version of this chapter.

Excab, Elizabeth and Van (c) Lorddraco8967


	41. Another Morning

**Chapter 40: Another Morning**

The light of dawn shown on Atlas and lit up the darkness in her eyelids. The magi opened her eyes to the brand new day and saw the vampire girl before her up in that same tree from last night. Still suspicious of the creature, Atlas looked at herself on the side to see if Violet had done anything to her since last night. Nothing changed; there was no collar on her or anything like that to weaken her. Then she looked to the other side to see if it was the same. To her surprise, she found Axle sleeping right next to her. The man rolled on his side as he slept. Somehow he looked more at peace near Atlas than when he was up in the tree last night. The magi looked away and felt awkward about this, wondering if she should be flattered at having a male dragon sleep with her or embarrassed. Then she quickly got over the feeling and looked at the man to see if he was untouched. Just like her, nothing had happened. Looks like Violet had kept her word, but Atlas wasn't about to trust her yet. After all, it was still too early for her to tell. Mindful of Axle, the magi thought not to get up as her movement might interrupt his sleep. Then she thought about giving her nieces a good morning telepathy, but they might still be sleeping, so she decided against that, too.

About ten minutes later, Axle yawned as he got up. He rubbed his eyes before he look up at the magi. **"Morning,"** he said as he stood up and stretched his arms.

Atlas greeted and asked, **"Morning, Axle. Did you get a good night's sleep?"**

As he rubbed his eyes, the man said, **"A rather more calmer night than what I had the first time I woke up at."** Then he looked around for a bit before asking, **"What about you, Atlas?"**

The magi answered, **"Well, I had a good rest. Nothing bad happening to me."** She glanced at Violet for a bit before she got up. Then she asked, **"So it looks like we're all okay then. Ready to move on out to Trident Mountain? We might catch some breakfast along the way." **She wasn't sure how much closer they were to the mountain. But should it be very far, then they must not waste any time at all and hurry over there before it was too late.

Axle nodded his head to Atlas. **"Yes,"** he said back to her as he changed back into his dragon form. **"Violet, you're with me,"** he told the vampire girl as she jumped from the tree and landed on Axle's back. **"Atlas, we are going to fly there to make up for time. It might still take us about 6-8 hours with flying, so we have about 2 hours of hunting for breaks,"** he told the magi as he ascended into the air. He was not wasting time from the looks of it.

**"Got it,"** the magi responded. Then she flew up into the air along with him and soared over the woods. She looked at the mountain far away from her, knowing that it would get bigger in her view the more close they get to it. _'Six to eight hours? That sounds like we'll be getting there in the afternoon,'_ she thought.

* * *

Aeolus was one of the first dragons to wake up. The horde leader went around his still sleeping clanmates and left the residential cave. Outside, he was greeted by Bam, who flashed a smile and said, **"Good morning, cous! Did you enjoy your sleep?"**

The disaster dragon answered, **"I certainly did."** As with every night after the Spell. With no uncomfortable floors and cages, his nights were now soft grounds and nests. Then he thought about a certain dragoness in mind and wondered if she was up. **"Anyway, has Juna awoken yet?"** he asked.

The navy blue dragon shook his head and answered, **"Not yet, cous. I just checked the cave and she's still sleeping."**

Looks like he'll have to wait some more before he hears the test's results. Aeolus replied, **"I understand; after all, most of us have still yet to awaken."** He'll give it an hour before everyone wakes up. The horde leader decided a way to pass the time until then and suggested, **"Shall we do some hunting?"**

Bam grinned like an excited hatchling and answered, **"Oh yes! Let's do it!"** Then the two cousins walked together to leave the village and see if there was any food out in the desert.

Before stepped over the border of the village, the cousins heard Yopple asking, **"Good morning. May I join in whatever activities you are doing?"  
**  
They turned their heads around and saw him approaching from behind. Aeolus answered, **"We're going hunting. You may, if you want."**

Bam smiled and said, **"Great! The more, the merrier! This will make our hunts easier."** That it will; with teamwork, they can have an efficient time catching lots of prey. Then they went out into the desert to find breakfast.

As they walked, Aeolus said to his subordinates, **"Alright, we are going to split up and find prey in different places. Should anyone find multiple, let us know with telepathy and we'll come over to you."**

**"Got it!"** said Bam, winking. Then the trio went their separate ways to hunt.

* * *

Minerva woke up and went downstairs to prepare breakfast. This time, it was porridge she was making with banana slices to go on top of it when it was cooked. She mixed the porridge with some honey for better taste. Near the end of being fully cooked, a sweet aroma from the breakfast made the woman want to eat it right now. After the porridge was done, she poured it in two bowls; one for herself and the other for Ronan. Then she sliced half of the banana into pieces to put on each bowl. She put the bowls on the table and then went to put the two chickens in the oven to cook for Drake. Seeing as how the dragon would need to eat a lot for his size, the woman thought, _'Boy, I'm going to have a lot of grocery shopping to do this weekend.'_

* * *

Kathia woke up out of her bed and saw the daylight shown through the window door. It was morning now; the girl wondered how long it was going to be until the evil Spinx decided to use her against Axle. If there was some way to escape until then, she hoped that there would be enough time to find it until then. The girl thought about using her parents as spies to search to help search for a way out of here. Using the ghost summon spell, she chanted, **"Spirits of my parents, come to me!"** But nothing happened; no matter how much she tried, her parents never came. It seems like being in the temporal plane prevented her necromancy from working. After all, it was Spinx's domain of undead and the only undead here were his. Then a quick realization came to her head, if all these people and dragons were Spinx's minions, then that means... **"Oh shoot!"** whispered Kathia dreadfully. She wasn't safe after all.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the swinging of the door. The maid had returned, carrying with her some clothing, more like it was meant for a scout. She also had some light armor with her made out of some kind of leather. Its scale texture was like a dragon, but there was no dragon scale patter like it nor do they have a faint glow to it. On the top of the stack of armor and clothing was a small wrist dagger made out of a light purple metal. **"Morning, Miss Kathia. These are for you. When you are done, breakfast will be downstairs in the dining hall. Master Spinx sends his regrades about not coming to get you himself, but he had matters to attend to,"** she said as she placed the stack on the table close to the door. **"Also, Van is outside the door. Elisabeth got injured last night while on guard duty, so she is in the medic center right now recovering."**

The story about Elisabeth probably may have been true, given how the maid warned of the castle still be susceptible to hostile intruders. Or it might have been a ploy to gain Kathia's trust. For now, the girl decided to play along and said, **"Okay, I'll be there shortly."** Then after the maid left, the girl got out of the bed and to take the clothes. She changed in them behind the folding screen. After getting dressed, the girl left the room and greeted the boy guard, **"Hi Van!"** She made her way to the stairs and went down it. She stood at the base of the stairs, looking at the purple blade of the dagger. She wondered what material it was made out of, since it didn't look like it was painted. Her eyes widened in surprise for a bit when she saw Van passing her by. Kathia watched where he went and saw that he turned into a room on the right hand side, one door away from the room that she met the good Spinx at. Van was leaning against the wall as he watched over her. From the backside of his armor, it looked like it took damage last night and was no longer look new, but rather battle torn. That must have been more proof that the Bad Spinx was out to get her. But then again, the boy could have done this himself. Feeling hungry, Kathia made her way over to the kitchen to get some breakfast. She grabbed a plate and filled it with sunny-side up eggs, sausages, a slice of roasted ham and a biscuit. She cut the biscuit up in half and put butter on it. Then she filled her glass with milk and returned to the table to eat and drink.

* * *

At the village, a mother dragon returned back to her cave room with some meat she ripped from prey during her hunt and some fruits. She dropped them next to her sleeping hatchlings and the Firestar sisters. She nudged each hatchling awake and said, **"Wake up, younglings. Breakfast is here."** The hatchlings opened their eyes and looked to the food before them.

Kylie beamed excitedly, **"Yay, breakfast!" **

Danielle was also hungry as well as she said,**"Alright!"** The hatchlings got out of the next and started eating the food.

The pink hatchling named Pinky looked at her mother gratefully and said, **"Thanks, mama!"**

The autumn dragoness smiled back and replied, **"You're welcome, dear."**

* * *

With the chicken cooked, Minerva took them out of the oven and placed them on cooler pans. Then she took one outside through the backdoor, since holding both would be difficult. After giving it to the sleeping dragon, she said, **"Here you go, Drake. I have another chicken back inside the kitchen. I'll come back with the other one."** Then she went back inside the kitchen and took the other chicken out. She went back to Drake and placed it it front of him. **"Here you go, enjoy!"** she said, smiling.

Drake woke up with a rather loud yawn. When he saw the food the woman brought him, he grinned and bowed his head to her. **"Thank you, Minerva,"** he said before he used his tongue to flick up the cooked bird into the air and catch it with his mouth, once each.

**"You're welcome,"** replied Minerva, who was glad that the dragon appreciated the meal she cooked. After he ate the chicken, the woman went to go look for Ronan. She found him doing a handstand outside on the front yard. Walking over to him, she said, **"Ronan, breakfast is ready. Don't let it get cold now."** She smiled humorously.

The man got back onto his feet. **"I'm coming,"** he smiled. He followed the woman back inside the house went over to the kitchen. **"What's on the menu today?"** he asked curiously.

Minerva smiled and playfully said, **"See for yourself; I can't spoil the surprise."** Then they entered the kitchen and she showed him the meal she made. **"It's porridge, Ronan,"** she answered. **"With bananas and honey."**

Ronan smile chuckling, **"Bananas and honey? It'll taste better than what I used to have back with my old master. He had me eat it plain, which I got used to after a month."** He sat down and took a smell and gave a satisfying 'mmmmm'.

The woman smiled back and said, **"Sounds like he didn't want to put all that sugar in your body."** She picked up one of the bowls and took it over to the dining table to eat. She ate one spoonful and savored its sweet taste. She had done well in making this breakfast. She hoped that Ronan like it as well.

The man took a taste and gave a satisfying sigh. **"That tastes so much better than plain."** He continued to eat.**"So, what's on the agenda today?"** he asked, looking to Minerva, asking her between bites.

After eating another spoonful, the woman answered, **"Well we got a call to expect back from David. He'll probably finish the blueprint today or tomorrow. And I got to check the news to see what I should write about today."** Somebody else wrote about the dragons' war on mankind in the NE region of Rudvich. But now after watching the news yesterday, she would have to write one about the dragons' global assault. But she wasn't sure if she should do this as it might give racists fuel to continue their hatred against dragons. But at the same time, it might show people why they shouldn't have done all the terrible things to dragons and that people may learn a lesson from this. Minerva would probably have to talk to Ronan about it first, which would be right now. **"Ronan, do you know about the war between dragons and humans?"** she asked.

Ronan was a little surprised by her question. **"Do I? I've witnessed it everywhere. Were it not for my upbringing and my master, I would probably be among them. That's why Drake and I work well together. Why do you ask?"** he asked curiously.

She told him her reason and expressed worry about the outcome. **"I'm not really sure if it would be the right thing to do. That's why I'm asking you for your opinion on this, because this is very important. I don't want to make a mistake that would make things worse. Should I write the article or not?"** she consulted. The fate of Windfall's human-dragon relationship depended on her choice.

The man paused as if he was thinking it over for a moment. Then he told her, **"Write the truth. If you do not, someone else will and the spark of war will begin anyway, simply at a later time. The truth will spark conflict of opinions. Some will see it as a call to war; others will see it as the result of their mistakes. If war does come, the dragons, who I know to be much wiser than any human, will see the division between the humans. They will either side with the humans who would help them, or kill us all."**

Minerva could see that he had a point. Even if the humans were conflicted over this, the dragons would spare the reformed humans and eventually become friends with them. Some of the ignorant people will open their eyes to this bond and come to understand the dragons. **"You're right, Ronan,"** she said. **"Maybe I should do this."** Then after breakfast was over, she put her bowl and glass in the sink and went upstairs to her room to go onto her laptop. She opened up the ADR's website and checked the news to see if anybody has beaten her to it. They did; a morning article has just been posted about the global war. Relieved that she didn't have to do any work, the woman thought, _'Well it looks like a part of my agenda just got fulfilled.'_ Then suddenly, she heard the telephone ringing both in her room and from downstairs in the living room. Minerva spun around in her chair and got up to approach the phone. The caller ID on it read "Whitney Palance" with her phone number. Perhaps that was David calling to let her know that the blueprint was done. The woman picked up the phone and asked, **"Hello?"**

Just like she thought, David was on the other end. He answered, **"Hey Minerva, I'm just calling to let you know that the blueprint is ready. So did you have a good morning?"**

**"I sure did,"** said the smiling woman. **"Ronan and I had porridge for breakfast and he liked it."**

**"That's great!"** beamed the man. **"Well anyway, the blueprint will be at my house for you to pick up. Just bring the money with you, okay?"**

Minerva nodded and replied, **"Alright, I got it. We'll be there today as soon as possible. Good morning to Whitney for me, okay?"**

**"Got it and I'll see you later,"** said David. Then he hung up the phone, which Minerva did afterwards.

The woman went downstairs to tell Ronan the news. She found him sharpening his assortment of weapons on the dining table. One by one, he cleaned them and sharpened the bladed weapons. **"Excuse me, Ronan,"** she said. After he turned to her, she continued, **"David called and he said that the blueprint was ready to be picked up."**

The man smiled and said, **"Excellent... excellent news. One step closer. We can leave as soon as I'm finished sharpening, ok? Weapons like these require a lot of care and attention every day, luckily only ONCE per day though."** He went back to sharpening.

**"Okay, I'll wait,"** said Minerva. **"I'll be watching TV in the meantime."** Then she went to the living room and sat on the couch. She picked up the remote and turned the TV on. The morning news talked about the city government's new plan to ban all electronic technology save for the ones necessary for human survival such as refrigerators, x-rays, stoves, etc. The reason for this was to conserve the energy that dragons put into keeping the city running. Constantly using magic for hours tended to have great exhaustion on the body and make the mind delirious. Even with the help of the human mages, the task was too much and hiring more mages would be costly. Minerva understood the concern for the workers, but she also predicted that there would be many people angry with this decision to ban the things they were heavily used to. She tried to find the good in this by looking at the bright side. At least people would have to spend more time outdoors getting some sunlight and exercise. And people would be reading books more often, instead of getting their eyes blinded by electronics. These reasons would be good enough right?

* * *

Bam searched the desert for prey and edible plants to eat; for a while, nothing came into sight so far. The sun's hot rays were warming his scales to the point where he would feel the heat. **"Boy, it sure is hot out here. It makes me wish I asked the gray dragons earlier to bring in some clouds,"** he mused to himself. Three minutes later, he found some prickly pears on a bunch of cacti. Delighted at his finding, the navy blue beamed,**"Oh joy!"** Since he knew his cousin couldn't eat plant-based food, he telepathically contacted Yopple, _'Hey Yopple, do you eat fruits? I found some prickly pears.'_

The cassare's response sounded a bit happy at first before quickly calming down, _'I love fru-AGH! I mean, I eat them if there is nothing else.'_

The navy blue replied with a smile, _'Great! Then come on over to me; I'll be happy to share these pears with you.'_ He lowered his head to the reddish-purple fruits on the cactus and felt the needles poke his chin. _'Ouch!'_ he thought, feeling the sting from the cactus.

_'I'm heading over,'_ Yopple responded. Bam closed his mouth around the pears without sinking his teeth on them and pulled the fruits off. He dropped them on the ground and went to get the other pears. After a few minutes, Yopple arrived as he trudged towards the area the navy dragon was in. Spotting the fruits on the ground, he said, **"Nice... find."**

Bam smiled and replied, **"Thanks! These are like one of my favorite fruits. They're good!"** He picked off a pear and ate it. Savoring its sweet and juicy taste, he hummed, **"Mmm!"** Then he picked up another pear and ate it. Seeing the cassare eating, he asked, **"So do you like the taste, too?"**

Yopple shrugged and responded through a mouth full of fruit, **"It's okay. I'm more of a meat person myself, but this is okay."**

The navy blue replied, **"Well as long as you're okay with it. Eat as much as you want."** He took two more pears and ate them.

* * *

After Kathia was full and her plate was clean, the girl got out of the chair and pushed it back towards the table. Then she went to check to see if Van was near the door to hallway; he was. So Kathia went to look for the infirmary to ask Elizabeth on what attacked last night or see if she could find the Good Spinx and hopefully spy on him without anybody watching her. Well Van would probably watch her anyway and she had no idea on how to distract him, so the latter option was impossible. For now, she would just have to go with finding Elizabeth. The girl went everywhere until she found the infirmary. She took a peek past the open doorway to see if the woman was alone or if any nurses were around. But then she withdrew her head when Van got in front of her. The boy seemed to be blocking her from opening up the door behind him. The look in his eyes kind of told the story of what was behind that door, Elisabeth.

The girl bit back her teeth in annoyance and thought, _'Persistent little brat, aren't you?'_ She really wanted to lose that unwanted attention, but how? Then an idea suddenly sprang into her mind; she noted how she and Van were different genders. The only way to split up was to go to a place where males and females can't see each other, the bathroom. She hoped such a place would have a window for her to escape through and hopefully find the Good Spinx or better yet, a way out of this world. The girl formed a pretend smile on her face and asked, **"Hey Van, do you know where I can find the bathroom? Nature's calling to me right now."** The boy's face turned a bit hot from the question and he just pointed down the hall, holding three figures up. He looked to the ground out of both embarrassment and worry. **"Thank you,"** the girl said. Then she walked over in that direction down the hall until she reached the bathroom.

Kathia opened the door and went inside. There it was; the window like she hoped there would be. But unfortunately, it wasn't the kind she hoped it would be. It was unlike the modern windows that let one open and close them at any time. This one didn't seem that it would open, no matter how hard she tried. **"Oh phooey!"** Kathia cursed in displeasure. Now she would have to find another way out of here. She knew of the balcony from the guestroom, but that was too high for to jump down from without hurting herself. The girl let out a hopeless sigh and said to herself,**"Great, now what?"** With no way to escape Van, she might as well go to the library and find something to read. Hopefully, there would be a spell book or something about fighting techniques for her to learn. But first, she waited for three minutes, so that she didn't appear suspicious by leaving the bathroom too early. After that time period, she turned the sink on and let the water flow for a bit. A few seconds later, the girl went back to the young bodyguard and asked, **"So where is the library?" **Van looked at her and nodded his head as he pointed to the door across the hall.

Kathia mouthed a "thanks" to him and went off in that direction. She quickly saw light glowing out the door like there was some kind of special electric light in there. But this was a medieval-like place; surely they wouldn't have electric lights, right? Then within the next second, a lightning bolt zapped out the doorway. The girl briefly stopped, thinking something was going on in the library. Then she heard sounds coming out of that room. It sounds like someone was going through some books, probably magic books. The lightning from a few seconds ago seemed to be proof of that. If someone was in there practicing spells, then this would confirm Kathia's hopes of there being spell books in the library. The girl went next to the door and stood beside the frame, being careful not to become an accidental victim of the magic. She poked her head to the side to make sure the coast was clear before she went in. To her wonder, the library was massive with tall bookshelves and arrays of many books. **"Wow,"** she murmured in amazement.

The library looked empty at first until someone walked by her with a mountain of books heading down a lane. The person said, **"I really hope these books are the ones he's looking for. He has yet to see."** He almost looked like a servant, but unless servants were now packing firepower and armed with large two-handed swords, more likely not one.

Another person came by with three books floating around him, reading them all at the same time. **"Interesting, very interesting. A barrier of that strength could keep out a demon sure enough, but for how long?"**he said out loud as he continued to walk down another alley.

Van came up to Kathia with a book, a cherry red book. It had an image of a dragon on it as the title read, _History of Dragons and Dragon Magic Volume 1:1_. He simply held it out to her. The girl took it and said, **"Gee, thanks!"** At the same time, someone shot a fireball down the lane. Kathia jumped in surprise, thinking that she could have gotten burned. But thankfully, she didn't. The fireball hit one of the shelves not even burning the books or scoring the wood. The girl went to a table and sat down to open the book and read it. To her disappointment, the book was written in a strange language that she didn't understand. **"What?"** she murmured in disbelief. She turned the pages quickly to see if the rest of the book was like that. Fortunately, she found the common language section that was of the same design as the first half of the book, but with a language that she was most familiar with. So the girl begun to read the book that started with the history of dragons to see if there were any valuable info on how to defeat these fiends.

* * *

Throughout the rest of the hour, Minerva had seen more reports on the news. There was one where dragons were outraged over a diner discriminating against them. The same diner was then forced by the Aquarians to allow service to the dragons. The woman thought that would be something to write about on the ADR's website. She would have gotten off the couch and go to her room now to do it, had she not heard Ronan's footsteps coming down the stair. Then she felt a tap on her shoulder, which she looked over and saw the man behind her. He was dressed in his usual outfit. **"Ready to go?"** she asked. She knew the answer was going to be 'yes', but she needed to make sure her assumption was right.

Ronan grinned and answered, **"Yes. Let's head out."** They went outside and climbed up on Drake's back. Drake flew them over to Whitney's house so that they could see the finished blueprints.

Then they landed at the front yard. The humans dismounted the dragon and went to the front door, where Minerva pushed the doorbell. A few seconds later, the door swung open and to the one who answered the call, David. The man flashed them a smile and said, **"Hey there! I got your blueprint right here."** He held up the rolled-up blueprint in his hand to them.

**"That's great!"**said Minerva, glad to see that it was done.

Then David opened the blueprint up and said, **"Now let me show you all what I've added since last time. Just follow me to the table."** Then they went inside the house and the man placed the blueprint flat on the table. He took his finger and pointed out the new details. **"Alright, so I've drawn out where the pipelines will be for the restrooms and the probable drinking fountain, if you guys need one. And we also have the air filters and power lines for the AC."**

Ronan nodded as he followed along with the details. **"How big is the training area here?"** He asked, pointing to it on the blueprint. **"It needs to be big enough to fit a large group of people plus the various equipment I'll need to use for teaching and training."**

David looked slightly embarrassed as he answered softly, **"Er... It's one thousand square feet. Did you wanted a really big training room?"**

Minerva answered, **"Yes we did. Sorry we forgot to tell you."** She herself was also embarrassed as she and Ronan forgot to tell him the details.

The ginger-haired man forgave her and said, **"Hey, it's alright. I can fix that up for you guys quickly and then take it over to the office supply store to have it printed. That is, if they haven't shut down their printers by now."** Minerva assumed that he was referring to the morning news about the technological ban. Then he asked, **"So anything else I should know before I start redrawing?"**

Ronan nodded and said, **"The training area will need to have half of the floor padded. The other half will have to be hard."** Then he looked to Minerva and asked, **"We did mention a locker area last time correct?" **

The woman shook her head and answered, **"I don't think we did." **

The assassin looked back to David and said, **"I think that's all. Once the school's up and running and we start making money we can expand as necessary or make adjustments."**

The draftsman replied, **"Okay, I'll get to work on it right now. Sit on the couch and wait or hang out with my sister, if you want."** Then he went to his room to get started on reworking the blueprint.

Just then, Whitney came out of the kitchen and was happy to have the familiar guests here again. **"Hey! Good morning! How are you guys?"** she smiled and beamed.

Ronan smiled at the redhead and greeted, **"Hello Whitney, a pleasure to see you again."** He bowed his head to her, while Minerva just greeted her with a smile and a "hello". **"Your brother is a skilled architect with these blueprints,"** the man said in admiration.

**"I know, right?"** said the ginger woman. **"That's why he made A's in his classes. He really knows his stuff." **

The impressed swordsman complimented, **"That sounds incredible! I'm glad Minerva here made the right choice in picking our draftsman."** He looked at the blonde in praise, who grinned and felt flattered.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Since I found out you can't use all technology in the RP, I tried to come up with a reason to have them banned in the story, but I'm not sure if the reasons were legitimate. I just wanted a way to make the humans more angrier towards the dragons, so that Kathia can get them on her side later. Sorry to stupefy the government, Sai. If any of you have a better reason or a better idea, then let me know in the comments, okay?

And in other news, Lorddraco8967 appears to be having some internet problems. Either that or he's probably quit the RP. Who knows until I find out. Either way, it's slowing down the RP, which means there will be a delay in future chapters.


	42. Juna Captured

**Chapter 41: Juna Captured**

For a while since the trio had split up, Aeolus had been moving through the desert to hunt for live prey. The scorching heat was a bit exhausting, but he could still bare it. He finally found his prey when he saw some flamingos fishing for food in the river. The dragon started to charge up his lightning breath for the kill. But before he was even halfway there, he heard some bad news from a horde member telling him in an urgent tone, _'Aeolus, we have an emergency! Juna has been kidnapped by a human intruder.'_

The leader's breath died down and disappeared as he was feeling dismayed. _'What?! How did this happen? There were plenty of you there to stop him,'_ he asked telepathically.

The spring dragon replied, _'He was pretty fast, Aeolus. Faster than a second. Naia tried to get Juna away from him, but he disappeared in a blink of an eye and then attacked her. Then he teleported away with Juna and took her over to Dracul.'_

The horde leader was now concerned; not just for the one who can train the horde, but also about the enemy having a really fast human who could teleport. It was hard to imagine that such a human existed. He could imagine that if the rest of human race was like this, then that would be trouble for dragonkind. Whatever method the human used to pull it off, Aeolus needed to find a way to deal with people like him or the horde will be unable to complete their conquest. _'That's unsettling. Very well, Bam, Yopple and I will return from our hunt and see what we can do to rescue her,'_ he said. If Mekarth had no relation to Juna, Aeolus would have let her stay captured and just get the training from Mekarth. But because he knew the black dragon would care about his sister, Aeolus decided the best course of action was to rescue her and gain their trust. He used telepathy to contact the other hunters, _'Bam, Yopple, we must return to camp immediately. Juna has just been kidnapped by one of Dracul's humans.'_

* * *

After a while of eating the prickly pears, Yopple faced the navy blue dragon and suggested, **"Maybe we should find as many of these as we can and bring them back to the horde. If this is all we can find..."**

Bam saw efficiency in the plan and said, **"Hey, good idea! We should do just."** Then he thought about bringing a companion along. And since the cassare was here, the navy blue asked, **"Want to team up and look for them together?"** Before an answer was heard, Aeolus's telepathic emergency was heard. Bam's face contorted to astonishment as he asked, _'Huh?! Really?'_ Yopple let out a sigh and shook his head at the news.

_'Yes, really,'_ the horde leader said to his cousin. _'This is another chance for us to gain her trust, so she can feel at ease training us. We need to talk to our witnesses so that we can discuss the perfect way to bring her back without hassle.'_

Bam replied, _'Okay. We'll be back at the village!'_ Then the dragon looked at Yopple and said, **"Come Yopple, let's warp back to the village."**

The cassare replied, **"Alright then. Warp to the village."** Yopple gathered up some of the cacti fruits and concentrated on his magic. Soon, the teleportation process begin. A few moments later, the dragons landed in the village.

The navy blue saw the horde coming out of the caves and talking to the other dragons to learn what happened and said how they would have prevented Juna's kidnapping. Aeolus arrived shortly by teleportation from the magic stone. The magi couple approached their leader and Kekul asked, **"Aeolus, Enamora and I have placed a tracking spell on Juna. We're ready to rescue her on your order."**

Aeolus replied, **"Alright, but not yet, Kekul. We need to learn more about the kidnapper first. Where is Mekarth?"**

Enamora answered about what she had heard, **"Apparently, he ran outside the village. He was pretty stressed about having his sister taken from him."**

**"Has anybody gone after him?"** asked the horde leader, wanting to make sure that they haven't lost the black dragon.

The purebred magi replied, **"Yes, Nowe tried to chase him down. He must be trying to get through to Mekarth."**

Aeolus said, **"Good, let's hope he gets him to calm down soon. Because I need to speak with him. For now, I will speak to the witnesses hear and find out more about this man. Do you know of anyone who saw him?"**

Kekul opened his mouth to speak, but he held his tongue as Salvo and Pyro approached the horde leader. The cassare chief interjected, **"I do. Pyro here was the one who tried to stop him, but that Mekarth held him back before he could do anymore."** His ice blue eyes glared as he growled, **"This wouldn't have happened if he gave us a chance to fight."** Then his face softened into calmness as he continued, **"But I suppose there's no use crying over spilled milk now. We still have these magis here to go after Juna and the hairless ape."**

The leader told him, **"That is true, but his faster than light speed and teleportion troubles me. I need to find out how he's doing this and plan out a way to cut off whatever source he's got."** It was too risky to attempt the rescue without the man coming back to retrieve Juna or slay the horde in a blink of an eye. He looked to the cassare dragonet and asked, **"Pyro, tell us everything you know about this human."**

Pyro began, **"Well when I tried to burn the human with a fireball, he came out unscathed. He even spoke about how he was much more powerful than I am."**

Aeolus found this piece of information concerning. He imagined the human must have been using something to protect himself in the form of really good fireproof clothing or a spell. As for how powerful the man was, the leader already knew of his two attributes, but there had to be more to the man than what he heard. The leader pressed on the issued, **"Did he wear any form of armor to protect himself?"**

The dragonet shook his head and answered, **"No sir, he just wore a cloak. That's all."**

**"Did he use any spells?"**

**"Not at all,"** answered Pyro. **"Well unless you count taking out your sword and then going faster than an eye's blink as one."**

After processing all this information, Aeolus came to the conclusion that the cloak functioned as the man's armor and the sword was his source of teleportation. If these two things were to be removed, then the man would be practically defenseless. But then there was still the issue of Dracul's other soldiers to defeat, if they were ever nearby Juna and the man. If any of them could teleport, they would certainly put tracking spells to bring the entire army to the horde. Because the horde wasn't numerous in number yet to fight against them, defeat would be inevitable. That was something the leader couldn't risk. So for now, he would have to train his horde in learning to disarm humans of their weaponry and armor. He would do so using his human form as a practice opponent. Aeolus thanked the dragonet, **"Thank you, Pyro. Your observation has proven useful for me to figure out what to do."**

Pyro asked, **"So what's your plan? How do we bring her back?"**

The leader answered, **"For now, we don't do anything. Unless we have an invisibility spell to hide one of our pygmies and use him as a spy."** That way, the spy will keep an eye on Juna to make sure she's safe and see what other tricks the human had. Better yet, the spy could go out to see Dracul and learn of his next plots.

Enamora spoke up, **"Or I could transform him into a fly. But it'll only last for 15 minutes."**

Aeolus thought about how brilliant the dragoness's idea was. With invisibility, the scent would still be smelled by dragons and they would track it down to the spy's location. But as an insect, the spy would be harder to track as he would hide in tight places like holes in a wall for example. The leader said, **"That sounds like a good alternative, Enamora. But we'll need a stone infused with your magic, so that the spy will be able to come back for you to recharge it. Fabre could make one for us."**

Salvo made a disgruntled face and growled, **"So you're just going to leave a dragoness all by herself with these monsters instead of rescuing her immediately. Some leader you are."**

The leader turned his head abruptly at the cassare chief. He was displeased with Salvo's lack of respect, but he decided to ignore it for now. He told, **"I understand you may be worried about her, Salvo. But I will not risk having this horde destroyed early.**

The chief spat, **"Worried? Pah! I could care less about that human lover or what happens to her. I'm just concerned that her brother will refuse to train us if don't bring her back now."**

**"I feel the same way you do,"** said Aeolus. **"Which is why I'm going to talk with him and see if we can work out a plan. He knows more about Shadow Wind and Dracul's minions than I do."** With more knowledge from Mekarth, Aeolus may either decided to keep the plan as is or change it to make it better. For now, he would wait until the former dragon lord returns.

After 15 minutes later, Merkath and Nowe the leaf pygmy returned to the village. During that time, the nocturnal dragons had returned to Doubloon's village to sleep after bringing in a clan of earth-based dragons. The magi mates and the cassare clan members had also left Aeolus and went to talk with the other dragons. Nowe flew off to tell the others that he's back, while the black dragon looked at the horde leader and asked, **"So Aeolus, what plan do you have?"**

The horde leader told him of his plan and the consequences of simply going for Juna immediately. After that, he started to ask, **"Speaking of which. Mekarth, I have a few theories about this human that I need confirmed. Are the cloak and sword his source of protection of teleportation?"**

**"I do not know. I can't tell what is magic and what is not,"** said the black before his head kind of lowered. **"I've never been able to at all."** Mekarth sounded a little depressed by that before he turned his attention back to Aeolus, **"However, I do know that man is a time leaper, or to put it in regular terms, a mage capable of slowing or speeding up time, even stopping it for a few seconds. That is really all I know. Axle and Juna are the ones who know more on magic topic than I do, sorry." **Aeolus felt somewhat discouraged by the black's lack of knowledge on the magic. Even more unbelievable was how a black dragon such as himself was unable to use magic, and that breed was capable of such a thing. However, the leader was getting somewhere after learning how the human was able to go this fast. He would be sure to ask one of the other former lords later about this. Mekarth started to turn around before he stopped and looked at Aeolus,**"Mind me asking but do you know where they might have gone to or a certain area?"**

Aeolus answered, **"You mean Axle and Atlas? I do not know. But if you need to know, I saw ask them."** The disaster dragon spoke telepathically to the magi dragoness, _'Atlas, how far have you and Axle reached Trident Mountain?'_

The response he heard in his mind was, _'I don't know, but we're not even close. We only got till afternoon to get there. But get this, Aeolus. Dracul apparently wants get there within 24 or else he'll put Axle's daughter in danger.'_

_'What?'_ asked the horde leader. He sensed something suspicious about the tyrant's demand. It was as if Dracul was using the hostage to lure the two dragons into a trap.

_'I know, right?'_ said Atlas. _'I think that bastard must be planning a trap for us there.'_

Aeolus warned, _'Your guess is as good as mine, Atlas. You and Axle must be careful. Whatever plans Dracul has for the two of you, it certainly won't be pretty.'_

The magi spoke determinedly as if eager for battle, _'Well whatever he's got waiting for us over there, I'll be sure to foil that plan and give him the middle claw. I won't let that bastard or that vampire he sent us get us.'_

_'He sent you a vampire?'_

Atlas answered, _'Yes he did. But it's not a dragon, it's a human that somehow got turned into one. Axle decided that girl is innocent and brought her with us. But I wouldn't be so sure. She might take off that collar while we aren't looking and let her family in on where we are.'_

Aeolus didn't like the idea of having an enemy this close to duo for unnecessary reasons. He found Axle's decision to be a foolish one that would surely bring danger to them. But hopefully, as least they'll be able to use her to spill out any beans as to what Dracul is up to and gain some intelligence on him. For their safety, he told her, _'Then by all means, keep a sharp eye on her on all times. That way, she won't cause any trouble when you least expect it. And whatever reason you have that collar on her for, make sure she keeps it on until you have no further use for her. After that, kill her.'_

_'Tch! Easier said than done when Axle's got compassion for the whole world, even the bad guys. He's just not the type to kill a fly.'_

Aeolus frowned in displeasure with the white dragon's pacifism and said, _'That fool; one day his soft-hearted nature will be his doom.'_

_'That's what I'm worried about,'_ said the concerned dragoness. _'But it looks like he's not his usual self lately. Not after the killing of his human daughter and the kidnapping of the other one. I think he means to get his claws on Dracul and kill him. Hell, he even killed a dragon to avenge the dead one.'_

Aeolus's opinion of Axle lightened a little as he said, _'So he's not as soft as he seems. That's a good thing.'_ One must use force, no matter how violent, when confronting a malicious leader in war. It was the only way to free a nation.

_'Yes, I guess,'_ Atlas agreed.

When they no longer had any words to continue the topic, the horde leader found it to be a perfect time to tell the magi what happened on his end. _'Anyway, I got some bad news that should concern Axle. Juna has just been abducted by one of Dracul's men.'_

The magi was surprised in a terrible way as she yelled, _'What the fuck, how?! She was with the horde, wasn't she? There's no way that could have happened.'_

_'But it did and I doubt any one of us could have stopped him.'_ Aeolus told her how the man was a time leaper and what he was capable of. He continued, _'That's why I brought this up, so that maybe you, a magi dragon, and Axle will tell me about one would use the power to stop time.'_

Unfortunately, Atlas was clueless on the subject as well. She said, _'Well gee, I don't know how it works. I've never cast any time spells in my life and I don't know if I can.'_

With his friend out of the picture, Aeolus had the dragon lord siblings left. _'Then I guess speak to Axle or Juna about this in a few minutes. Thank you for this talk, Atlas. I'll contact you again when I need something.'_

_'You're welcome, Aeolus. Good luck with getting Juna back.'_ Then they ended their telepathy. Aeolus looked to Mekarth and told him everything he learned the conversation like how far away Axle and Atlas were, who their new travelling companion was, and why they needed to hurry to Trident Mountain.

The black dragon gasped a bit in response. **"Well that is not good. Not good at all,"** Mekarth said as he took a step back. **"Tell Atlas to keep a distance from Axle. If Dracul did that or had someone did that, that is not going to be a pretty sight," **he said as he shook his head. **"Axle may be a person who rather have life or death, but he will kill anyone who attacks or threatens his family or people he cares for, that include people who gets in his way. Take it from me,"** he said. Mekarth took a few seconds before he redirected his attention back to the problem at hand. **"Well now we have to get Juna back ASAP, so that she can train you guys, because I simply cannot,"** he said before he took his leave from the village, back towards the empty desert, and back towards the copy of the city the newly-recruited earth dragons were making.

Taking the black's warning seriously, Aeolus used telepathy again to contact Atlas and warn her before it was too late. _'Atlas, it's me again. You haven't told Axle about Juna yet, have you?'_ he asked.

The magi answered, _'No I haven't, why?'_

The disaster told her, _'Good, because Mekarth has just given me word of caution about his brother. I've heard that he gets violent whenever anybody tries to harm the people he loves. He's even hostile around those who get in his way. Atlas, you need to keep a safe distance away from Axle now, and don't tell him anything about Juna either.' _Keeping the dragoness's capture a secret would prevent her brother from getting more angrier than he was now.

_'Um, right. The secret's safe with me,'_ said Atlas. Aeolus could sense a feeling of disturbance in her tone as if she was more worried than ever for the white dragon.

The telepathy ended once more and the horde leader went on to contact Juna next. Axle was out of the question; talking to him about the time leaper could end up leading to him finding out about his sister. The disaster pictured the silver dragoness in mind and asked, _'Juna, are you alright?'_

Her bitter response was, _'Well at least the collar does not stop telepathic communication. And to answer your question, no, I'm not alright. You better start explaining why I'm in a damn cell again.'_

Aeolus found it odd how the dragoness knew nothing of her own abduction. Surely she wouldn't ignore the fact that her life being in danger. _'You mean you don't know?'_ he asked.

_'How about the fact I was asleep,'_ Juna snapped back at him. The horde leader scowled in response to the dragoness's harsh tone. He knew she had a strong dislike for him, but the way she said it was enough to get on practically anyone's nerves. She continued, _'Aeolus, when I get out of here; you, me, and my brother are going to have a very nice long chat about this. Oh, and will only take an hour or so.' _The way she said it, almost sounded too calm for it to be good. Aeolus suspected that that this "nice chat" was going to be opposite. Perhaps she may rant at him about today's incident or how she went unconscious yesterday, but who knows what she had in mind. Anyway, the leader questioned, _'And how do you intend to escape? You just got kidnapped by a time leaper. You break out and he might come for you again before you least suspect it.'_ He had originally thought about sneering the question, but that would make her dislike him more. He needed to get on her good side, so that his horde would receive training.

_'Simple, knock down the front door.'_

Juna sounded confident in her tactic, but what about making her way out from her prison? _'And the guards. Do you believe that you are a match for any of them, even a group of them?'_ he asked.

_'I don't know, Aeolus. Who knows? They might be worth fighting at full strength,'_ the dragoness replied back. _'If you want to help, go ahead.'_

With Juna's permission to aid her, the horde leader replied, _'Very well, I shall send a few spies over to your location and have them scout the place for the safest way out.'_ Aeolus searched his surroundings for a pygmy who would be useful for the mission. He found Nowe eating one of the prickly pears that Bam and Yopple returned with. Beside him was a honeycomb pygmy who had just finished his breakfast. The leader called out to him, **"Liath, I need your help."**

The pygmy gathered his bees and flew over to land in front of his leader. Liath asked, **"What is it, sir?"**

Aeolus said, **"I will tell you once I get a few others to go for the spying mission."** Then he found 5 other pygmies and summoned them to hear the mission. He briefed them, **"So as some of you heard, Juna has been captured by the enemy and we need her back. But this will not be a rescue mission; instead, you are to act as scouts to help her search for a good way out of the enemy's territory. And secondly, I'll need you to spy on Dracul and his soldiers and tell me of their plans, so that we can be prepared to foil them."** One of the pygmies raised his claw, wanting to speak his mind about this. The leader gave him his attention and asked, **"Yes?"**

The pygmy spoke, **"Aeolus, I know you've been a pretty good leader so far and all your plans have worked so far, but wouldn't it be more convenient to just teleport Juna back to us?"** The other pygmies agreed with his suggestion and voiced how easier it was to just do that.

The disaster thought that they would question his plan, knowing that they may not understand it at first. He was prepared to answer their concerns. Remembering what he thought about his own plans, he explained to them the consequences of going through the pygmy's plan. At the end, he said, **"And that's why I decided for you to do scout and spy instead. When Juna escapes out of the building, the enemy will know she's ran out on her own. Then after she's far out of their sight, that's when we teleport her back to us. They'll most likely still think that she's running away and still keep their chase. But even after this, you still must spy on them, no matter what."** Then his eyes narrowed slightly in seriousness for what he was about to say next. He cautioned them, **"But be warned, this mission will be dangerous. Should Dracul and his cohorts catch you, it'll spell the end of your life. If you are seen, get your magic crystals and teleport away; not to us, but to a place far from us so that they don't suspect you of being with the horde and bring their whole army against us."** Compared to the horde's usual human hunts, being alone in the enemy stronghold was incredibly risky. For one, the enemy will surely outnumber the spies and the pygmies' small stature may not land them an easy victory in a battle. It would be like a mouse running through a den of cats. The pygmies better pray that their training yesterday would be enough to combat anyone bigger than themselves.

The pygmies stood nervously, understanding what this mission would be like for them and thinking whether they should be in on it or not. The wasp pygmy on the other hand was also curious about the particular item that was needed for the mission. **"Magic crystals?"** he asked.

Aeolus explained, **"Yes, magic crystals. Fabre will be making crystals and infusing them with Enamora's magic. These crystals will allow you to use any spell a magi dragon can do, but only until their power runs out. You must conserve your energy and use them only at important times. Otherwise, you won't be able to come back here or do anything else. Do you understand?"**

**"Yes!"** said all the pygmies.

**"Good, I hope you all remember that,"** Aeolus told them. **"Because a single mistake can make things go wrong."** The pygmies took his warning seriously to the heart as they made a mental not lose the crystal or use it too much. **"Anyway, Enamora has proposed a spell that will make your mission easier." **

Interested in the magical convenience, Liath curiously asked, **"What is it?"**

The leader answered,**"A transformation spell, but not the one that turns you human. Instead, you will be flies. In this form, you'll be harder to see and harder to hit. This spell will be perfect for the spying mission."** And perfect to spy on human camps in the future as well. He was grateful to the purebred magi for having to suggest that spell.

The pygmies were content with the spell as they felt that they would be safer using it. After Nowe finished his breakfast, the leaf pygmy, who overhead the conversation, approached the horde leader and asked, **"****Well that's nice and all, Aeolus. But how do you plan on stopping the human or anyone else for that matter from coming back here to capture Juna again? I mean I don't know if the man's been here in this village before. But if he hasn't, then he must have gotten here somehow."**

Aeolus knew the pygmy was right; he had almost forgotten to talk about that until he was reminded. The leader replied,** "****Oh yes, we should look for that first. Nowe, you are a witness, are you not?"**

The leaf pygmy answered, **"****Yes I am, why?"**

Aeolus told him, **"****I need you to show these pygmies here through telepathy what that human looks like. One of them needs to find that man and see how he does it."**

**"****I got it,"** Nowe responded. Then he turned to the spies and stared at them for a few seconds. _'__This is what he looks like,'_ he said. He gave them a mental image of the spy in full details such as his face, hair, the gray cloak he wore and a two-handed sword he carried with him.

While the spies were in the process of memorizing the kidnapper, the horde leader telepathically called the two dragons he needed, _'__Enamora, Fabre, we're about to send the spies off soon. I need your help to make magic crystals for them.'_

The magi dragoness replied,_ '__They're going off now? Well then, I'll be right there.'_

The crystal-maker said, _'__I'll come as well.' _Once the spies fully memorized the man, they told Nowe that they got it now. Aeolus looked at his surroundings, expecting to see the approaching magi and the crystal-maker. There they were past the other dragons; Enamora was coming in from behind and Fabre was approaching from the front. Once they made it to the group, Fabre started to create crystals by summoning magic energy and channeling it to a spot on the ground where a brief small flash appeared and was soon replaced by a teal crystal. Enamora picked up the crystal and infused it with her magic.

After 6 magic crystals were created, each one was given to each spy to keep. The magi dragoness instructed the spies on how to use the crystals, **"Now to turn yourselves into flies, you must imagine yourselves as these bugs and willfully changed your body shape into that form while using the crystal's magic energy. You must also shrink yourselves into the right size."** The horde leader found Enamora's explanation to be very similar to that of the human transformation spell. It seemed like transformation spells can be used to turn anyone into many different species they wanted to be. Looks like the transformation spell was more convenient than he thought. After the magi was finished teaching the pygmies how to use other spells, she told them, **"And if you ever have any questions, don't be afraid to ask me, okay?"**

**"Okay,"** the spies replied.

With the briefing over, Aeolus figured that it was time to send the spies off to the prison, now that there was nothing else to tell them or give them. He looked to the magi and told her, **"Enamora, warp the spies over to the prison now."**

She obliged, **"Yes, Aeolus."** Then she used the tracking spell to give her the image of Juna's whereabouts. Taking the prison scene into her mind, she looked down at the pygmies and teleported them over to the prison. The spies disappeared from view to begin the mission that their leader assigned them.

The magi and crystal maker looked at their leader as he said, **"I really hope the mission goes well. This is essential to us for our advantage."**

Fabre assured, **"I'm sure they'll do just fine. After all, you and Enamora told them what to do their jobs."**

Aeolus replied,**"You're probably right."** Then a few seconds later, 6 bright flashes appeared between them and in their place were the spies they had sent earlier. The leader wondered what was the meaning of this very early return they had taken. He questioned them on it, **"You pygmies, what's going on? Why have you come back?"**

Liath told him the bad news, **"Well we were supposed to be in prison with Juna, but we weren't there and neither was Juna."**

The crimson flare next to him said, **"We just got warped to the ocean instead."**

**"What?!"** Aeolus said, taken by surprise and confusion over teleportation doing the opposition of where it was supposed to take them.

Enamora found it extremely hard to believe as she said, **"But that's impossible. My tracking spell's supposed to help take you over to her."**

Liath shrugged, **"Well apparently it didn't. I don't know what happened or what caused it, but that's just how it is."  
**  
Aeolus shook his head in frustration; looks like they were going to have to come up with a different plan. But first, he would have to ask the magi.**"Enamora, do would know any spell that would deflect your teleportation or tracking spell?"** he inquired.

The magi shook her head and replied, **"Not that I know of. But there are illusion spells that would make your surroundings look like a totally different place."**

The horde leader theorized, **"Then perhaps the spies might have been deceived. Enamora, can you go to that ocean and dispel the illusion?"**

**"Of course I can,"** replied the magi. She teleported herself over to where the tracking spell took the spies and arrived at the ocean. Then she anti-illusion spell to get remove all traces of any illusions around her. But nothing changed; the ocean was still itself. This was no illusion; it was the real deal. **"Oh no,"** Enamora said to herself, realizing that her tracking spell really did get deflected. She warped herself back to the horde and told the leader, **"Aeolus, the ocean wasn't an illusion. It looks like we really did get rebounded."**

Aeolus's mouth curled into a gritting frown. **"Curses,"** he growled. Dracul's forces have managed to defeat him with whatever unknown spells they had. **"I guess we'll just have to delay the rescue until we come up with something. For now, we'll just have battle training until a plan comes to mind,"** he said. So the horde leader gathered his horde for a meeting and organized sparring partners. The only dragons left out were the earth dragons who had to continue building the Shadow Wind duplicate and the spies who needed to practice turning themselves into flies until they were perfect at it. After every partner was assigned, the horde went out into the desert. Aeolus went face to face with his crimson flare partner. He blew his lightning breath at him, which the pygmy dodged by rolling sideways through the air.

* * *

**Author's Note:** The next chapter will start off with Atlas and then the rest will be about Kathia. Now that this chapter is over, I can go back to working on my Spice picture and then my Halloween costume fanart of Oersted in an O-D-O costume.

Naia, Nowe and Liath (c) me


	43. Escape from the Temporal Plane

**Chapter 42: Escape from the Temporal Plane**

After a while of flight, Atlas spotted a deer below the trees eating some leaves. She hadn't eaten breakfast since they resumed their trip. Her belly had been aching for food to fill it. Not wanting to miss her chance for a meal, the dragoness said to Axle, **"I'll be right back. I got a deer to munch on. Don't stop for me. I'll teleport to you when I'm done."** The dragoness swooped down towards the buck. As soon as she reached the treetops, the deer heard her shifting the tree branches and stopped eating. The panicked animal began to prance away from its predator, hoping to escape becoming her next meal. Atlas shot a spell of ice needles at it, which struck the deer and froze its veins. The prey was slowed down by its frozen wounds and in a matter of moments, the dragoness reached it and struck it down with a powerful swipe of her claw. Atlas began to eat the slain animal, savoring its delicate meat. Any tiny frozen parts of its flesh were warmed up with fire magic melting the ice.

As she was nearly done eating the dear, the magi heard a telepathic voice from Ohimia. The lumina asked, _'Hey! Atlas, right? It's me, Ohimia! Garin, the halfling you met, and I are looking for you. Where are you?'_

Atlas answered, _'Axle and I are going over to Trident Mountain. We have to make there before the end of the day or else the bad guys are going to put his daughter into whatever twisted games they have for her. You guys need something?'_

Ohimia replied, _'Well... we don't necessarily need anything as in "we need help", but you and your white dragon friend seem to be good friends. It's hard to keep friends, especially in this time of war, and... I would like friends. And companions to travel with. It may sound silly, but it's true.'_

The magi would be glad to keep her company, but she knew Axle and his sister, Juna, would be displeased if she brought others into unnecessary danger. Even Atlas herself didn't want to put her and Garin into harm's way. So she gave the lumina a fair warning to understand the journey to Trident Mountain. _'Well Ohimia, I'd like to hang with you guys, too. But our journey isn't all playtime and games. You see? We're going up against two evil dragons, a necromancer, vampire humans and everyone else they're throwing at us. That means there will fights, danger and death. You almost got killed by a hybrid; I'm not sure I want to have your life risked again. Especially when you're still learning how to fight,'_ she said.

Then Garin entered the conversation and asked, _'Mind if I interject for a moment?'_

_'Hm?'_ replied Atlas, curious as to what the halfling was about to say.

Garin asked her, _'I know how to handle myself in a fight, and, if anything, we could come along and my job could just be to keep Ohimia safe. How does that sound to you?'_

The magi thought over her decision whether to bring them along or not. If Ohimia was with her, then Atlas can help train her and pass off her skills that won her many battles in the tournaments, but only during breaks. After making up her mind, the magi told him, _'Alright, I'll take you along. But I got to ask Axle first.'_ She formed a telepathic bond with the white dragon and asked, _'Hey Axle, Garin and Ohimia want to come with us. They can both fight for themselves. Can I bring them?'_

The dragon said, _'I leave that choice to you. Also I landed in a clearing quite far from you as well for my own hunt, just teleport there when you are done. Violet is there as well.' _He sent a mental image of the clearing. Some of the area was burn, but for the most part it looked like a nice spot to rest at. It seemed like the magi's hunting had inspired him to go catch his own food. Looks like they'll be having their first break until it was time to go again.

After taking the image in to her memory, the magi replied, _'Alright, I'll be there in a few seconds.'_ Then she stopped using telepathy with Axle and went back to Garin and Ohimia. _'Alright, I'll take you guys with us. I'd like to see how much Ohimia has learned from you,' _she said. Atlas used the tracking spell to locate the lumina and halfling. Then she teleported herself over to where they were at. Ohimia was a little surprised at the magi's sudden appearance. Turning her head to look from one to the other, the magi told them,**"Let's go to where we'll meet Axle."** She pictured the location the former dragon lord gave her and she teleported the three over to the clearing. There, Atlas saw that Violet was left here by herself. Atlas told the vampire who the tag-a-longs were before she looked from the halfling to the lumina, **"Alright blood-sucker, I brought some new friends and I want you to know them. This halfling is Garin and the other one here is Ohimia."** Then she turned to the duo and introduced the girl to them, **"And everyone, this is Violet, a vampire who worked for the evil dragons I was telling you about. She supposedly didn't want any part in the attack and Axle trusts her. But I'd watch her if I were you."**

Ohimia looked at the vampire girl and greeted, **"A vampire, huh? Well, nice to meet you, Violet!"**

* * *

The history started off by mentioning that dragons originally came from another dimension that eventually died off with the gradual death of the once fertile lands. It also told of the evolution of dragons, who evolved from dinosaurs that survived the extinction caused by a magical meteor. These dinosaurs would then evolve over time to gain increasing IQ, wings, the ability to breathe fire and do magic. Before they came to the human world, the dragon lived in clans, each with a different breed that was purebred. Mixing with another clan was forbidden back then, unless their breeds comprised of only gender and need to produce a new member.

Things were generally peaceful back then until the first evil dragon known as Evila came to rule the witch dragon clan. She was a sadistic and power-hungry dragoness who would stop at nothing to make her clan a superpower and be the supreme ruler of all dragons. She would make all clans who opposed her disappear off the face of the world. The clans who didn't want to fight and risk their lives, gave away their lands to the ever increasing witch dragon clan and fled. Evila's reign of terror ended when the leader of the magi dragon clan, Ganelum, brought together the clans with the best powers and waged war against her. Evila was slain and the witch dragon clan went into extinction, but at the cost of the hero's life and over 30% of his army.

Kathia also read one part in that history that intrigued her. The witch dragons would take the most dangerous animals and magically transform them into mind-controlled dragon soldiers of new breeds to use as weapons against the other clans. These new breeds of dragons were still alive to this day. The girl thought about doing what the witches did and turning animals into monsters. These monsters would be weapons to fight against the dragons. If only she knew how to do this, then it would be great. With necromancy and transformation, she would become more powerful.

Van came back up to Kathia and he was not alone this time. With him was the good Spinx, but the good one now had on a black suit. But under that suit, it looked like he was wearing armor and there was a sword attached to his hip. **"Morning Kathia. I take it you heard about Elisabeth and about what might have happened last night,"** Spinx said as he pulled out one of the seat.

**"I sure did,"** said the girl in response.

**"Van, can you go get the item that is from Excab and Sapphire. It should be in the armory room in the metal box,"** Spinx said as the boy nodded his head and walked from them. Then the man asked the girl, **"So any question you want to asks?"**

Kathia nodded and answered, **"Yes sir, a few. Who or what attacked Elizabeth? Is she going to be alright?"** If she knew what the castle was dealing with, she'd be better prepared for ambushes from the mysterious enemy.

The man nodded his head reassuringly and told her, **"I figured as much. Well what have happened to her last night; she is lucky not to have come to more harm than what she was in. So far the only real injures on her physically was inflicted on her back and a few on her neck and right arm. She will live from it before you ask; but her mental state, seeing how thing in this place are more, well, deadly, is questionable."** Kathia now knew the state Elizabeth was in, but what about the attacker? Why did Spinx jump around that subject? The girl felt that was suspicious indeed. But she wasn't going to press on that as she didn't want the man to know that she was coming on to her. She knew things would get ugly if she revealed her wits. The girl decided to play along for now until she could find a way out of this world.

Van was quick about acquiring the item. It was a small black box with a clear lid. The boy set it on the table and backed away. In the small box was a rolled up piece of paper and a small orb in it. Kathia looked at these two objects ad asked, **"What are these?"**

Spinx slid the box and said, **"It's your means of escape from here; consider it a gift from a few after lords. As for how it works, I really have no idea. All I know is the sphere is full of dragon blood and you need a second source of magic energy, one that will be destroyed after. From what Sapphire was able to tell me was that it only teleports you to a dragon, a dragon you must know the name of. That's about it, that's all I know." **

Kathia was both surprised and glad that they're giving her a means to escape this place. Perhaps she misjudged these people; they weren't so bad after all. They probably must function as themselves normally here as they did in the living world before death. Maybe they only change once the bad Spinx summons them to use under his control. The girl took the box and said, **"Gee thanks, Spinx!"** She knew the name of the dragon she wanted to teleport to was Axle. The other thing she needed was a source of magical energy. But where would she get that? Certainly not herself as she needed her powers. It was a few seconds before a church bell ringed and the whole place got quite. Unsure of what was happening, the girl asked, **"Hey, what's going on?"**

Spinx and Van seemed to react to the church bell. Van drew two small swords from his jacket and Spinx slide the chair out quite fast, knocking it over. The moment the two males looked ready for an oncoming battle, Kathia knew that something was wrong. The man's hand reach for the sword hilt when the sound of glass shattered somewhere in the library; the girl suspected that the castle has been invaded by intruders. **"Van, take Kathia out of here. Now,"** Spinx said as he bounced over the table to the sound.

Van came up to Kathia, who was holding the box under her right arm. The girl looked to the boy; the nervous expression on his face was unsettling. Last night, the boy had been calm in taking the dangerous job to protect her from attackers. Now he seemed like he didn't want to deal with who or what has attacked the castle. Whatever it was, Kathia knew that the foe was going to be more dangerous than she expected. She said to Van, **"Come on, let's get somewhere safe."** Then the boy made his way out of the library as the girl dashed following him to wherever he was going. As they were running, a screech was heard coming from the hallway. This was soon followed with a large fireball rushing down the hallway. Kathia's eyes went wide with terror of being burnt to crisp. She immediately screamed, **"Duck!"** Within the next second, she threw herself face flat to the floor and let the fireball fly over her. Its impact destroyed the vase on a stand that got set on fire and scorched its wood black. She didn't look to see if Van had saved himself as well.

After the fire that engulfed the hall died out, the girl looked ahead of herself to see what was going on in front of her for the fireball to come in like that. Standing in front of them was Elisabeth, who was now out of the infirmary, looking a little more pissed than normally. She said, **"This is no time for eating the crumbs off the ground. Get up and move you two, now."**

Van bounced to his feet in a second. Kathia hastily pushed herself off the floor and got to her feet, while crying, **"Okay, I'm coming!"** She resumed following Van to who-knows-where, hoping that they would make it there safely in one piece. _'Oh gods, let me survive this! Let me survive this!'_ she thought with her panicky heart racing. They ran down the hall towards the back entrance and was about to turn around the corner when an arrow was shot right at Van. The startled girl jumped when she saw the weapon fly. Fortunately, the boy's hand deflected the arrow with ease. Whatever was around the corner that he signaled Elisabeth to take Kathia another way. Van turned his full focus to whatever was around the corner and ran down in a full speed.

**"This way Kathia,"** the woman said as she opened up a door to a small room, which seemed like a dead end. For a moment, the girl felt safe until she heard someone behind her.

**"And what do you really think you can go with his prize, Elisabeth of the silver tongue, hm?"** a voice came from behind them. They turned and saw a halfling covered in blood. Elisabeth covered her nose from the smell; it seemed she could smell the blood on her. Kathia knew that he was referring to the bad Spinx, who saw her as his tool. She realized that if the bad Spinx's men were here for her, then that meant that Axle was approaching him soon. **"Don't think you ca-"** the halfling started to speak before Elisabeth channeled magic into a lighting blast.

**"Go back to the hell you crawled out of,"** the woman said as she released the spell. The power itself was grand as it filled the hall way with a blast of white energy. Elisabeth looked back at Kathia and said, **"That's twice it's been hit by a spell of mine."**

Kathia asked, **"So he can survive getting zapped by lightning?"** It would make sense considering that everyone here was already dead and were being kept alive by the temporal plane. Killing them again might be impossible.

Elisabeth slammed the door shut and started to slide her hands over the wall, almost like she was looking for something. **"It's not the surviving part that's the problem, it's the fact that it is already dead; and trying to kill anything in the temporal plane is a bit more difficult than what you think,"** she said as she stopped moving along the wall. On the side of her neck, which can be seen now, was a very black area that was in the pattern of a claw mark from something. Kathia stared at the scar on the neck; the woman had been killed by a dragon. Elizabeth pressed hard against the wall she was against now. **"And if I had to guess, yes that thing could survive a blast of that magnitude; simple because I do not have enough strength to destroy that thing anymore,"** she said as the wall glowed red and flames spit out from the wall, emitting heat onto the girl's skin, before opening up a secret passage in the middle of the room leading down. **"To simply put in Kathia, all I can do is stall it for a few seconds or so before it returns,"** the woman said as she turned around. A small ball of fire appeared next to her. **"Kathia, listen very carefully, at the end of this passage is a platform. Spinx already informed me on the theory of returning you home, and well seeing how you don't even measure up to a mage level of that skill, there was only one choice on who originally cast the spell here,"** Elisabeth said as they started to walk down the stairs. **"If all goes according to plan, you should arrive back home with little or no marks on you. However, if things do not, just yell the name Excab. It's really your only safety net you have if worse comes to worse. Now let's get going."**

**"Alright, I'm going,"** Kathia said. After a while, they finally made it there and saw a platform in the middle of the room. **"Looks like that must be it,"** said the girl.

Elisabeth seemed a little weary of the area, almost like she was on edge about something. **"We are not alone here,"** she whispered to the girl.

**"Huh?"** said Kathia, who was now uneasy by what the woman has just said. The woman snapped her figures, lighting a line of oil paths on fire, and her supposition were correct. Sitting near the platform stairs were the halfling that Elisabeth blasted with lighting and another halfling. There laying over the edge of the staircase was Van, who was very badly injured and bleeding. Kathia gasped in shock and horror at the poor boy's condition.

The halfling that had been blasted with lightning said, **"Well you finally made it here at last. I was starting to think I would have to have fun with slicing your partner up into little ribbons."**

**"Kathia, stay here,"** Elisabeth said as she started to walk towards the pair. She seemed to have a heat aura around her as she walked closer. **"You two made a big mistake attacking Van, now you will pay."**

**"Oh, it sound like the big bad dr-"** the second one started to say before it was light on fire, right where she stood. It screeched loudly before vanishing into smoke.

The first one asked, **"How did you get the strength to use ignite at the magnitude?"** Its answer was on it as well as it busted into flames.

**"You never ever, piss off a red mage ever, ungrateful soul,"** Elisabeth snarled at the now burning halfling. Once the area was clear for the time being, the woman looked back at Kathia and yelled to her, **"We do not have time to for you to be standing around all day and sight-seeing."**

The girl flinched at the woman's yell before she cried,**"Oh right, sorry!"** Then she hurried over to the platform and then looked at the box she held. This was it; she had to use a magic source to activate the orb and get her out of this world and there were only two: herself and Elisabeth. She didn't know if the woman would voluntarily sacrifice her own magic to get Kathia out of her, but she wouldn't count on someone happily giving up the powers that made them mighty. Even Kathia herself was reluctant to give up the magic energy she needed to kill dragons and teach her army. _'Oh gosh, this is so hard,' _she thought.

Elisabeth followed the girl to the platform and stopped at the edge of the circle. **"Well I guess this is goodbye then, Kathia. With very little knowledge of how this spell works, I have really no idea where you'll really end up: could be in the air miles from the target or even inside them."** Kathia's heart felt heavy with nervousness at the thought of being too high in the sky or getting digested inside a dragon. But then she relaxed in relief, after the woman continued, **"It would be the first and only sending spell I will cast for the rest of my life. Now if you do not mind the scroll."** The girl took the scroll and out of the box and handed to her. Now she waited for the moment would she would speak Axle's name.

Elisabeth grabbed the scroll and opened it up. What was inside was more than a spell for escaping, but also a letter as well in an unknown language. She tore the letter part off from the scroll and handed it back to Kathia.**"That part is not for the spell, nor is it in English or Draconic. Simply to put it, it's for whoever you are targeting, which I can very much take a stab at who," **the woman said.

**"Axle,"** the girl murmured the name, answering the woman's guess. Then Elisabeth started to chant the spell. It was a bit weird, sounding quite similar to a dragon, and the mage sounded just like a real one. Kathia was amazed at how well her voice imitated a dragon's. Perhaps the scroll was written in Draconic.

The chant seemed to last for about ten minutes before the woman stopped. **"That is it; the spell is ready. Just break the orb and say the name of the target. Whatever you do, don't move. Also, according to the spell, it first have to pinpoint the target, which will take some time. Give or take ten minutes or so,"** Elisabeth said as she dropped the paper and it was engulfed in flames.

The girl replied, **"Okay, got it. I'll just stand perfectly still while this is going on."**

**"That is the last of my magic, and once you are about to teleport, my life will go as well, ceasing to live any longer. Well hell, had a nice run while it lasted, but everything has its own time to end."**

The girl was confused by this and said, **"But I thought you and everybody else here are already dead. How can you die ag-"** Her mind instantly figured it out for her when she remembered how zombies were corpses filled with magic to give them life again. Because Elisabeth was one, the woman would lose all magic in her body and forever cease to animate in the temporal plane. **"Oh right,"** the girl continued. It was quite tragic for the woman to end like that and even though Kathia only knew her from last night to the morning, she still felt for her. **"I think everyone here's going to miss you, Elisabeth,"** said the girl, predicting the good zombies' response to the woman's loss.

Elisabeth turned towards the staircase. **"Dead? No kid, me, Van and Spinx are very much alive, well for the time being. But that's soon about to change, for all of us that still very much have life left in our bodies,"** the woman sadly said as she watched the staircase. **"But, there are secrets in these worlds best left forgotten,"** she said as she pulled off the cloak that was around her, revealing an armored Elisabeth. She had two purple metal whips on her sides as she gripped both the handles of the whips and cracked them out to their full length. Kathia stared at the woman's armor and whips in interest; not only was she a mage, but it looked like she was a warrior, too. Then the woman said out loud, **"Well are you two going to be hiding in the shadows or are you going to strike?"**

A few seconds later, the two halflings came from the shadows of the room. **"My, my. What a noticeable girl you are. Sadly, we are not going to let her get away that easily,"** one of the halfling said as they both started to move slowly towards Elisabeth.

The other one said,**"And how we are going to stop her from leaving is by killing you."**

Elisabeth ended up cracking one of her whips hard on the floor next to them. She snarled, **"You know you both are really starting to piss me off greatly." **

**"Oh' then, let me fix that for you than,"** the second one said before vanishing in the shadows than soon reappearing right in front of the woman. He quickly pulled out a dagger and it found its mark right square in her chest. **"You see? Without your magic, you are very much useless and really no match for either of us, so do us all a favor and just die here,"** he snarled back at her as she fell to her knees.

The first halfling said to the girl, **"Miss Kathia, it is very impolite to just run off before the big party is about to happen. It not very welled Mann-"** It was interrupted when Elisabeth swung her whip right through the air, snapping right across it face. It drew blood from the creature.

The woman said, **"And I do not find it very thrilling at all that a few shadow mages can't take on a single powerless mage without cheap tricks."**

Kathia's adrenaline started pumping with fear and eagerness to escape before the halflings get to her. She quickly took the orb and threw it down hard onto the platform where it smashed and broke into pieces. Then she looked up at the ceiling and shouted, **"AXLE!"** She waited for the spell to take effect and take her to the dragon.

Elisabeth kept the halfling back at bay for a good five minutes before they started to wear her out greatly. One managed to tackle her to the ground and pinned her down. The other one stepped hard on her hand causing her to scream in pain. **"Music to our ears,"** said one of the halflings.

The girl gritted her teeth anxiously, hoping that the woman didn't get defeated or killed in this fight. The last thing she needed right now was for these halflings to come take her away in the middle of the spell. Staring at the woman and hoping that she would come out on top, Kathia thought, _'Please win this, Elisabeth!'_ The girl wished she could use her spells to aid in this fight, but that would turn the creatures' attention onto her and probably get her knocked off the platform, which would ruin the send-home spell.

There was a loud snap that soon followed Elisabeth's screaming on the top of her lungs. From the look of it the halflings have snapper her right wrist. Kathia flinched and hissed uncomfortably, feeling the pain that Elisabeth went through.

The halfling that was standing up said, **"Oh quite your whining, it was only a wrist. Not like we went and rip out your damn heart from your chest or was carving you alive, which come to think of it, would not be a half bad idea."** Then it turned towards Kathia and continued, **"But time is running short and we cannot have his baiter teleport away before her big role now, can we. Zu, you can have your fun with her, I'll collect the other one, so she can't escape from her." **

As he approached her, the girl stiffened in fear and cried, **"No! Stay back!"**

The halfling grinned evilly and said,**"Now it's not very nice to leave without permission, so how about you wait for a little bit before he summons you."** Before it raised a hand to her, it said to its comrade, **"Hey Zu, it is okay if she was well, under?"**

**"No, as long as she is alive,"** Zu said back, keeping the struggling Elisabeth down.

**"Well dear, luck is not on yo-"** the halfling started to say before a strange sword came flying across the air.

**"You will her alone,"** a boy-like voice echoed in the air.

**"So it lives. Zu I thought you killed that brat?"**

Zu replied, **"There was no pulse left in his body, it's not possible for him to have lived though that whole onslaught."** Then he was soon caught off guard by another halfling appearing out of nowhere and it took a slash at Zu, causing him to jump off of Elisabeth and away from the new halfling.

**"I told you, you will leave her alone,"** Van said as a pair of white angel dragon-like wings was now on his back. **"I'm the one who will protect her."** Kathia was shocked; the boy was a halfling all along? All this time she thought he was human. She didn't know that he would be part dragon. Now this changes her perspective on the boy and not for definitely not for the better.

Elisabeth was help up by Van, who also looked shocked at his new appearance. **"Take it easy, Elisabeth. You have done your job of protecting her until now. I will take over from here for the time being,"** he said, sounding a bit sadden by this.

Elisabeth looked at him and asked, **"Van, what did you do?"**

**"That is not worth talking about, but my body will degrade soon because of this power, but,"** Van said as he looked at his hand as it swelled with a bright light aura. As the woman closed his fist into a ball, he continued, **"I will use it to succeed with the job I was assigned to, and that will be to protect Kathia until she is returned home, as instructed by Spinx."**

**"What happened, Van?"** Elisabeth asked.

**"Spinx is dead. There is no good part of him left to stand against the evil soul fragment. I will see that his last wishes are seen though,"** he said as he turned his attention back to the halfling. Elisabeth looked down to the ground as she heard the news.

The first thought that came to Kathia's mind was, _'He's gone... and I never got to thank him for everything he's done for me.'_ The good Spinx had truly been a nice man and the girl regretted getting paranoid and thinking bad of him.

Zu readied his dagger as he asked, **"Oh, how touching. The loss of your master made you closer. If it makes you feel better, we can reunite you two with him? Hm?"** The other halfling readied its spells.

**"No. I will send you both back to hell from which you crawled out of," **Van said as he floated a few inches off the ground, yet the wings were not flapping or moving at all. The boy vanished into the air and reappeared in front of Zu, catching him off guard as Van punched him square in the chest, releasing a large about of light into Zu's chest, causing him to fly back to the stairs. Zu cough up blood when he hit the hard ground. The other halfling cast a fireball at Van at point blink range, but the boy grabbed its hand with his open one and canceled it spell. With his other, he slashed with the second sword he had across its chest, dealing a very deep cut in its chest. Blood seemed to spill from the halfling's body as Van let go of its hand and spun, dealing another lethal blow to it next, slashing it clean open. He himself was covered in blood as the halfling he has slain fell to his feet.

The boy turned his attention back to Zu, who asked, **"Damn you. How could you have taken a blast of that size and still live and still fight?"** As he got up to his feet, he shouted, **"It un-human like, even a dragon could not withstand that blast."**

Van did not waste time before he again vanished and reappeared back in front of the halfling, making quick work of him. As Zu fell to his blade, the boy said, **"Because it's my own life energy that I was able to take on this form and stand for the moment."**

The spell that was cast to track Axle now summoned a circle around Kathia, as Elisabeth fell to her knees and then soon to her side. It seemed the spell have found Axle and Elisabeth's life have faded from her body. Van looked at Kathia and said, **"Sorry, Kathia, but you will be on your own from now on."** He started to fade from existence.

The girl held back her disgust, masking her face with a plain emotionless one so as to avoid a conflict with him when she was just getting back to the real world. _'Yeah, no shit, freak,'_ she thought. Then the girl was warped back to the living world.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Next chapter with start off with Kathia and then maybe we'll see what happens next on Aeolus's part. As to what the Draconic writing looks like, well Draco8967 found this on Wordpress and I decided to implement it into the story: .wordpress com/2012/04/draconic_script png (just remove the spaces between wordpress &amp; com, and script &amp; png). And finally, I have drawn a picture of Wonder-Pink as a vampire. I don't know if I'll have it done by Halloween, but I'm going to try to trace and color it in Stash. My Photoshop subscription expired and because I've used enough money for this month, I'm going to wait until sometime in November to renew it.

Ganelum (c) me  
Sapphire and Zu (c) Lorddraco8967


	44. Rina Finds Out

**Chapter 43: Rina Finds Out**

Kathia found herself a few feet above a white mass and screamed as she fell onto it. The landing felt like it was in somewhere between soft and hard. The girl pushed her upper-body up with her hands on the scales. Then she looked at what she was on. It was a white dragon. She assumed that this creature was Axle, the one she had chosen to be warped to. But she wasn't here to be buddies with him; she was here to run on back to either Sundown or Windfall, whichever was the closest. The girl looked for a way to get off of him, so that she could skedaddle. Kathia found his tail, which she could use to get herself down to the ground. Before she could move to there, she heard Axle ask her, **"Who are you?"** He however sounded a bit weak when he said that.

The girl looked at him and answered, **"No one important. Now if you'll excuse me. I got to go."** Then she crawled over to his tail and grabbed a hold of it. She used the spikes on the tail as handles for getting down like she would a ladder. Once she reached the forest floor, Kathia quickly ran away from the dragon before they could talk some more. She was the destined dragon slayer and she could not afford to be friendly to creatures such as them, even if they did care about humans.

But this wasn't going to be the last time she saw of him. Kathia heard running footsteps behind and knew that the dragon was following her. His four legs gave him the advantage of running faster than the girl would on her two legs and pretty soon, he got ahead of her and stopped right in her path. Axle asked, **"Oh no. You smell like sulfur, almost like you came from another realm. So want to tell me who you are and where you just came from?"**

The girl growled, **"My name is none of your business, dragon! Now leave me alone!"** She ran to the side, trying to escape this creature and continue her way to a human settlement. But once again, she got cut off. Not by the dragon, but by an angry-looking man.

He glared at her and said, **"Fine, you do not have to tell me who you are. But for you to suddenly appear out of nowhere and land on my back without an explanation and think that is fine, you are sorely mistaken."** Upon recognizing the voice, Kathia realized to her shock that this man was Axle and somehow he had taken the form of a human. It seemed he would not leave her alone without answers.

Her shock quickly died down and was replaced by her annoyed emotion for the dragon's persistence to bug her. The girl let out an angry groan and yelled, **"Fine, I'll tell you where I came from! I was captured by Spinx and taken to another dimension where he would keep me there until it was time for him to use me as a hostage against you. His good side in there and his friends helped me to escape and that's how I ended up here. There! Does that answer your question?"**

Sounding a bit more concerned for the safety of the girl, Axle said, **"Kind of. But what makes you think Spinx won't just come after you again? Think about it, he wanted to use a hostage so he could get the upper hand on me. When he finds out, you think he's just going to sit around and let you slip right between his figures?"**

Now that she thought about it, the "man" was right. There was no doubt the wicked necromancer would try to retrieve her. That means the girl needed reach civilization soon or else. But she was too prideful to accept a dragon's help, even if he was a good one. Kathia huffed and scoffed, **"I think I'll have you know that I can take care of myself, scaly. I have magic powers and ghosts to watch over me. I don't need no overgrown lizard to protect me. So scram, scoot, get out of here!"**

Suddenly, there was a snapping sound of someone running through the forest with much haste. What came from around the tree was the young girl who had been with Azera. She ran towards Kathia and cried while babbling, **"Kathia help. Azera, he's hurt badly and he's heading back to the mountain where that necromancer is at. Please, you have to stop him."** Axle seemed to recoil at Azera's name and soon headed in the opposite direction, back the way he came from.

Kathia didn't know his problem was, but she was thankful for whatever the girl said that scared him. Turning to the younger girl, the redhead assured her in a soft tone, **"There, there, don't cry. I'll go save his life."** Oh bummer, now that means the redhead will have to put herself in danger to save someone's life. As much as she hated going back to the abominable necromancer, the hunter just couldn't say no to the young girl in need. Abandoning a fellow human being to die would be a really bad thing to do. Hopefully, Azera didn't get too close to Spinx, where he could see her and try to capture her again. **"Show me where he is,"** she said. The little girl nodded her head and then she led her back the way in a quick pace. As she led, it was evident that she was tired, almost like she had yet to rest at all. The redhead saw her panting and how slow and weak her running was. The child must have been in a hurry to find help quickly before now. If Kathia had a bottle of water with her, she would have used her magic to turn it into blessed water to revitalize the girl's stamina. But unfortunately, she didn't have one on her as the containers were back at the camp. But still, having a tired person around would slow her down before she could make it to Azera. Perhaps it would be better to have the girl stay in a safe place while the redhead went on ahead. Kathia said, **"Hey, you look pretty tired. Want to me directions where he's at and I go follow on that?"**

They stopped running, so that the girl can catch her breath. She simply pointed towards the mountain and said, sounding very weak, **"That is all I know he went to. The place we were staying at last, where Azera was healing up, was just ahead, but he started to walk closer and closer to the mountain. Afterwards I ran back to the camp you were at, but you have disappeared; so I panicked, running through the forest to find Azera. I never found him though, that's when I saw the white dragon landing in the clearing. He had with him a woman in a purple collar, soon dispersing from her and heading on his own. I thought he might be here to hunt Azera, because Azera has a detailed sketch of the one dragon in his pocket. That is all I know. Please find him before that dragon does or before Spinx does."**

The redhead started to wonder if the campers were looking for her and if they organized a few teams to search for her in these woods. The teen's cellphone was back at the camp, Mrs. Merryweather might have called her to see how she was doing and got worried by now when the maid didn't get a response. Kathia didn't like having to worry everyone like that. She'll need to come back in one piece to put everyone's concerns to rest. Then the little girl said a white dragon landed with a woman in a purple collar. Kathia wondered if she was talking about Axle. Then she learned that the dragon may have been hunting Azera down. This raised the redhead's eyebrow; if Axle was going after Azera, then why did he turn tail and ran away like a scaredy cat? Well the little girl did say she thought the dragon might have been doing that, so her guess could be wrong. Maybe it was the other way around considering Azera was a mercenary and that he may have been hired to hunt down the dragon. Who knows? Then after the little girl begged her to find the man, Kathia put on a bravado with a confident smile on her face and made a thumbs up. She assured, **"Don't worry, I'll make it in time before any of these two bozos get to him. Don't you worry.**" Then she turned and headed in the direction the mercenary had been at.

Kathia ran towards the mountain and out of the girl's sight. Figuring the given direction may not be enough, the redhead thought to use a ghost to aid her in the search. One who knew their way around this place. While on the move, the girl began to summon such a spirit. Using her magic energy, she said, **"Oh soul of a person who knows this part of the wilderness and the mountain well, I summon you to come here and help me." **

Within moments, a glowing white transparent form of a hiker started to appear in front of the girl who now stopped. The chubby mustached man made a hearty smile at her and said, **"Hello lassie, it's nice to be back in the real world again. So how may I help you?"**

Kathia told him, **"I need you to help me find a man named Azera. He's got silver hair, scars on his face, he carries weapons and he wears a black sleeveless shirt. Have you seen a guy like that?"  
**  
The hiker nodded and answered, **"Oh yes, I've seen 'em walking by here. He looked like he had a bone to pick with that feller in black I saw walking by here last night. I can take you over to 'em."**

**"Please do,"** the mage replied.

The ghost said, **"Alrighty then, follow me."** The girl followed the hiker's spirit on the way to the mercenary.

Kathia thought about the little girl she left behind and didn't want her to be all alone. Somebody needed to watch over her. The mage summoned another ghost, this time a woman in her mid-twenties. Kathia told the female ghost, **"I need to you to look for a black-haired girl over there and watch over her while I'm gone. Let me know if anything happens."** The woman agreed to do this task and floated herself over to where the little girl was left behind.

* * *

After a while of waiting, David came out of his room with a updated blueprint. He showed it to Ronan and Minerva and said, **"It's done, guys! I've made it bigger. So what do think now? Looks perfect or what?" **He flashed a confident toothy grin at them.

Minerva looked at the layout and examined the dojo room. It was just the right size. The woman nodded and said, **"I think so."** Then she looked at her boyfriend and asked, **"Ronan, what do you think?"**

Ronan nodded with a smirk. **"Excellent. I say we're ready to move forward,"** he said, looking to Minerva.

**"Okay then,"** said David. He held out his hand as if he needed to take something. **"Give me the payment and I'll give you the blueprint."**

Minerva took out her wallet and opened up the zipper to take out some coins. She gave them to the man and said, **"Here you go!"**

**"Great!"** said David as he took the money. **"I hope that place gets build. I want to see what it's like."**

Ronan smirked and asked the blonde. **"Shall we go?"**

Minerva nodded and replied, **"Of course!"** Then after saying goodbye to her friends, they walked outside over to Drake and got onto his back. Next stop would be the city hall, where the Aquarians were to get assistance for the construction of their new school.

* * *

After a short while later, the horde was close to finishing their spars when Aeolus was contacted by Juna, _'Aeolus, here after about thirty minutes of fighting, I have finally made it to the top of this damn prison. Now do you mind teleporting here and taking me and my new band of misfits. So if you do not mind coming and getting us, like now would be great.' _She sent him a full 360° image of the place out in the middle of the ocean.

It looks like Juna had done the horde's job of rescuing herself and made it convenient for them. The horde leader told his sparring partner to stop fighting for a moment, so that he can talk to Juna. Aeolus replied to her,_'Very well, I shall send one of us to fetch you.'_ Then he chose a dragon for this job and told him, _'Kekul, I need you to teleport yourself over to Juna and her company and bring them back to the village.'_

_'Got it,'_ the magma magi replied. After receiving the ocean image from the leader, he warped over to Juna and teleport every single prisoner back to the village.

Juna and the other three girls stood in the middle of the desert with the sparring horde. The halfling lord was in a gladiator outfit and they all had the same slave collars around their necks. The horde stopped training looked at the new guests. The human girls screeched, but Juna and the female halfling did not. Tavurth's ears were hurt by that loud noise that the annoyed brute growled under his breath, **"Damn screaming apes."**

Salvo was just as peeved off with the noise and growled, **"So annoying! And look who decided to bring them here." **He was referring to Juna the "human-lover" whom he did not like.

The lord turned her head to the girls. **"Will you two stop that damn horrible screaming? It is rather annoying,"** she said calmly, but her tone sent chills down the girls' backs, which stopped their screams. _'Aeolus come here, now. And while you are at it, bring my brother with you, if he's somewhere close by,'_ Juna thought to the horde leader, sounding a bit cold, almost like she was annoyed.

Aeolus, unnerved by her tone as he expected her to be like this all the time with him, replied, _'__I'm right here with the others, but Mekarth is still building the Shadow Wind replica. I'll call him as I come.'_ The horde leader could see her 30 meters from where he was at; reaching Juna wouldn't be too far. Aeolus went towards the lord as he telepathically called her brother, _'__Mekarth, Juna is back in one piece. She's with us outside the village where the horde sparred yesterday.'_

Juna pinched her nose and said in disappointment, **"You can't telepathically talk to him. You may not have noticed that, but me and Axle speak with him out loud because we have no way of talking with him any other way."**

**"What?!"**the leader asked, sounding surprised and in disbelief by what he just heard about her brother. All dragons had the ability to use telepathy and it was very much unheard of for one not to do it, so why can't Mekarth do it?

The "halfling" turned her attention back to the collar around her neck and warned, **"Aeolus, if you or anyone in this horde touch these three, you will be sorry. I have to go find my brother now, simply because he needs to do something for me."**

As Juna walked away from the group, the horde leader narrowed his eyes in contempt and murmured, **"Don't worry, I have no interest in harming any of them.**" In his own thoughts, he added, _'Yet.'_ Once the war against Dracul was over and the Vulture Horde was strong enough in both strength and numbers, he will see to these humans slain. For now, these women will be in the horde's protection until then. Aeolus said to Yopple, **"Yopple, lead these women to the village. We can't have them get in the way of our training." **The cassare picked the women up and moved towards the village.

Aeolus was about to resume his training when he heard another telepathically message, this time from Rina, _'Aeolus.'_ However, something was off; she sounded dead serious this time, the coldness in her voice clearly sipping through. _'I want to ask you a question,' _she continued, _'Not a while ago, Raven told me something interesting. I want you to answer truthfully: is it true that you are planning to wipe out every single human in the entire world?"_

The horde leader made an angry frown and narrowed his eyes. After he had told his horde not to let word of his intended plan slip, they had to tell someone. What if they had let Mekarth heard them, too? Thankfully up to now, the black dragon didn't seem like he knew. But it was still possible for Raven to tell him about it, provide that the Eternal Wind clan dragon met the former lord. Aeolus decided to give Rina his honest answer, knowing that she wasn't anywhere near the dragon lords. In a calm tone, he answered, _'Well Rina, I'll have to confirm your friend's words. Yes, I am. But we'll be holding that off for now since we have other things to attend to.'_

_'I see,'_ replied Rina. _'Let me be clear with you on one thing, Aeolus. No matter whether it's a human we are talking about or not, I draw the line at the genocide of the sentient species. Nearly all of our clan members do. Or did, seeing as what happened to our clan. So why do you want an entire species wiped off the planet, besides the obvious?'_

There it was, that not-all-humans-are-bad belief he had been expecting; just like with Atlas, Zeditha and the Incarus family. Just why were these dragons so lenient towards humans? Going back to the question at hand, the horde leader answered, _'Rina, have you ever watched your family get murdered right before your very eyes?'_ He already knew the answer considering that the dragoness had told him that her clan had been slaughtered. _'Have you ever been taken away from home at a young age and then forced to live grueling miserable days of slavery for centuries long? Have you watched your mother suffer through work, pain and tears until she got weaker and die?'_ His telepathic voice started to get a little bit bitter when he mentioned his mother's death. _'Have you heard about how the beautiful woods of your birth has been destroyed and turned into a polluted wreck of industrial factories for greedy billionaires?'_ His voice grew more resentful as more memories of his past poured into his head. _'Have you ever been raped by one of your masters? Have you given your trust to a few seemingly-nice humans and then end up getting stabbed in the back? Have you ever been used in painful experiments? Have you been torn apart from your children before or after their births when they're given to someone else to be slaves for them or butchered to killed for food or clothing? Because all these things are what these humans exactly did to me.'_

The Eternal Wind clan dragoness said, _'The only things I've suffered through my life is living through the siege of our village, being isolated and cut off from the rest of the world along with my friends and family. Humans destroyed our village and killed most of us. However I already had my revenge by killing those dragon hunters, and that is clearly enough for me.'_

Aeolus said, _'Then surely, you know how vicious and wicked humans are.'_

Rina continued, this time with a strange tone in her voice, _'These reasons are not enough for me to change my opinion about this, Aeolus. Genocide is a genocide, no matter how you look at it and no matter who is involved. Yes, I do dislike humans, and Raven hates them more than me. However this is not a valid reason for us to suddenly up and go around slaughtering them left and right. I don't care if we are going to protect them, and I most certainly do not care who am I fighting. I won't try to change your views about humans in general,'_ she added, her voice slowly shifting to threatening. _'It's clear that I can't do that, no matter how hard I'll try. So let me put this up front, Aeolus: we are enemies now. We will do whatever is possible to stop your plan from progressing. If you try to attack any innocent human or settlement, we will fight back once we learn about it. And we won't be merciful to either you, or any member of the Vulture Horde who will participate in attacks. Do not say later that we did not warn you. Farewell.'_

The horde leader's feelings were mutual; if she tried to stop her, then he will defeat her. _'Very well then, my enemy. Let's see if you can try and stop us,'_ he thought coldly. He was now more resolved in making his horde stronger to destroy all opposition, whether they be human or dragon. Aeolus went back to his sparring partner and said, **"Alright Firefry, let's get back to training."** The crimson flare got to his feet and took off speeding into the air at the horde leader, who was prepared to defend himself and strike back.

* * *

Doubloon was chatting with two dragonesses about a daughter. The chief listened to the morningstar dragoness speak in a fond manner, **"And that's when my daughter met this nice young dragon. She would see him for a few days before she got invited to join his clan. My daughter would tell me through telepathy how sweet he was and how he protected her from humans. Now they're mates and they have three adorable little hatchlings."** The morningstar was proud and happy for her daughter having a loving mate and a nice family.

The canopy dragoness smiled and said, **"That's so wonderful. I'm glad your daughter's living the good life."**

Doubloon was content as well. He was about to congratulate the morningstar, when he heard an urgent message from one of his guards, _'Chief Doubloon, we're under attack by humans. They've killed Quartz, we need to activate the trap crystals now and get ready to fight for our lives.'_

The chief frowned, knowing that his village was in danger and that action must be taken immediately._ '__I'm on it, I'll get the village prepared right now,' _he said.

The two dragonesses stopped smiling when they noticed the serious expression on his face. They became concerned as the canopy asked, **"Chief, what's wrong?"**

Doubloon answered, **"We've got human intruders. We need to stop them now."** Then he telepathically spoke to the crystal-maker dragons, _'Lhove, Rivet, I need you to activate the trap crystals. We're under attack by humans. They've already killed Quartz and I fear the same might happen to his friend. I'll alert the other dragons so that they can act as backup in case the traps fail.'_

_'We're on it, chief!'_ the crystal-makers said. Then the chief telepathically told the other dragons in the village to let them know of the situation and told them to get ready to fight.

* * *

Danielle and Kylie were playing with their hatchling friends when they heard feet running outside the room. They turned to the entrance and saw dragons running right by. The whiptail hatchling asked, **"What's going on? Why are dhey wunning?"**

The autumn dragoness, the baby sitter for the hatchlings as the other mother dragons were out, answered, **"There's humans outside, dearie. The dragons are going to fight them. We need to stay inside this room right now. Do not leave this place."**

Pendra the imperial fleshcrowne hatchling looked at the dragoness with confident eyes and asked, **"They're going to win, right?"**

The autumn nodded and made an appropriate response to keep the hatchlings from being fearful, **"They will."** She exaggerated the dragons' capabilities and said, **"They're big strong dragons. They'll be able to squash those puny humans."**

The imperial fleshcrowne smiled in enthusiasm and said, **"Cool! I want to see them fight."**

The dragoness shook her head to deny him permission to leave and said, **"No, you are stay here where you'll be safe. Besides, you might get in their way."** She also didn't want his life put in danger of the crossfire or for him to be exposed to any bloody violence and death.

Pendra insisted, **"No I won't! I'll just stay to the side and watch."**

The autumn still refused to let him out and spoke sternly, **"You are going to stay in this cave, whether you like it or not. And if you try to get out of here, I will let your parents know, so that you will be grounded."**

The fleshcrowne hatchling groaned and pouted in response. **"Fine, I'll stay here in this crummy cave,"** he said.

Pinky yelled at him, **"Hey, my cave's not crummy!"**

Her sister, Smasp the autumn hatchling, yelled, **"Yeah!"** The room they were in belonged to Pinky and Smasp. The autumn dragoness was their mother.

Pendra didn't mean to insult his friends; he was just mad about not being allowed outside to see all the action. He sighed an apology, **"Sorry."**

Mevelle the albino hatchling bounded over to him and assured, **"Hey, don't worry. The grown-ups will tell us about the fight after it's done. Maybe they'll show us it through telepathy."**

The autumn dragoness growled at her, **"Mevelle, don't give him any ideas."**

Pendra liked the albino's idea and thought to use it to his advantage. _'I should ask,'_ he thought. He formed a telepathic communication with his father and asked, _'Dad, you're fighting right? Can you show me how you're fighting the humans?'_

His father gladly agreed to do it, _'Sure thing, son. Your big strong papa is going to show you how he whoops their butts.'_ He used his sight-sharing spell to let his son see what he was seeing. Right now, the villagers were standing a distance away the cave entrance, right where the trap crystals were placed between them. Pendra smiled as he was eager to see fight and action that would take place soon.

* * *

Once they reached the city hall, Minerva got off of Drake and went inside the building. She went over to the receptionist's desk. The woman behind the desk talked into the phone for a few seconds before she hang up. Then she looked at the approaching pair and asked, **"Hello, how may I help you?"**

Minerva asked her, **"We came here to get the Aquarians' help on building a fighting school. We brought a blueprint to show them how we want it built. Will they have time to help us?"**

The receptionist nodded and replied, **"Mm-hmm! They should get your school built quickly on time. I'll go over to their office and get them."** Then she left the desk and went on her way. After a few minutes, she returned with an armored falconiform wyvern.

The falconiform asked,**"So where do you humans need this school of yours built?"  
**  
Ronan stepped forward then the falconiform approached. The man asked, **"Do you possibly have a map of Rudvich? I can better point out the location that way. I have a decent memory."**

The falconiform looked to the receptionist and told her, **"Ms. Benton, can you get a map for this gentleman right here?"**

Ms. Benton nodded and replied, **"Of course, sir."** Then she went behind her desk and pulled out a brochure from the shelf. She returned back to them and gave Ronan the brochure, which had the map of the city inside.**"Here you go, sir,"** she said.

Ronan took the map and said,**"Thank you."** He opened up the map and turned it for the falconiform to see and pointed to the spot on the map that he found. **"Right there. A decently large area perfect to set up the school."**

The Aquarian soldier studied the location on the map for few seconds before drawing his head back and saying, **"Very well, I'll call in one of our magis have him gather a few earth dragons to help build the place. Now do you have a blueprint so that we can know what you want your place to look like?"**

Minerva nodded and answered, **"Of course! We have it with us."** She held a rolled up blueprint to show.

The falconiform was content to see that they came prepared. **"That's good! Show it to the earth dragons when you get there,"** he said. Shortly, an Aquarian magi appeared next to him via teleportation. The falconiform told him, **"You see the empty place on this man's map? I need you to take this couple over there and get some earth dragons to help out on the construction."**

The magi replied, **"Yes sir."** Then he teleported Ronan and Minerva over to grassy area in the city.

**"Whoa!"** the woman cried out. She and her boyfriend were taken by surprise by the sudden transition from being inside the city hall to being outdoors in a heartbeat.

The magi looked around at his surroundings and asked, **"Is this the place you wanted your business built at?"**

The man nodded and curiously asked, **"Yes this is the spot. How fast can it be built?"**

**"In just a few minutes,"** the magi answered. Nodding once, he added, **"Yes, our magic works that fast. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be bringing some earth dragons here."** Then he teleported out of their sight.

Minerva looked to Ronan and said with a smile, **"This is it; we're finally getting our school built. Isn't this great?"**

He looked at his girlfriend with a smile. **"We'll still need to get supplies for training inside. those won't be so quickly obtained."**

Minerva agreed with him and added, **"And we also need someone to design our logo for us and make advertisements."** Without them, their school would just look bland and boring and not many people would know about the place. Their business would be in the red. She thought about more what they would need and figured out what to get. **"And we might need someone to paint our walls, too,"** she suggested.

Ronan nodded and said, **"I think we can figure that out.**" Then he asked, **"How will we get advertisement though? The most we could probably do right now is banners."**

Fortunately, Minerva had thought of a second way to advertise. **"We can also tell people about our school and have them spread the word,"** she suggested. She made a plan to tell her friends and coworkers and get them to talk to other people about it.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I didn't know a good title for this chapter, so I just called it "Rina Finds Out", since I think the scene where Aeolus tells Rina the truth had a bigger impact than the other parts in this chapter. Alternatively, I would have called it "Getting the School Built" since Minerva and Ronan were on their way to making it happen and they had the most scenes (which is 2, since the others had only 1). But the school will probably be built on the next chapter or the one after it. Anyway, I'm going to edit my Spice Megabeast picture to fix the highlighting before I go out to the farmer's market.

Firefly and Ms. Benton (c) me


	45. The School is Built

**Chapter 44: The School is Built**

Kathia followed the hiker's spirit, she glanced to the left and right sides to make sure that neither Spinx nor his dragons and snake were seen. The coast had been clear every time. As they continued through the woods, they were getting closer and closer to the mountain. But the closer they were to Trident Mountain, the more anxious she was in thinking she encounter the necromancer. The girl tried to regain composure by telling herself silently, _'Come on Kathia, get a hold of yourself. You're a destined slayer of dragons and savior of humanity; you can't be scared of one guy. You got spells, too. It'll be like a gunfight; strike him first before he does. Abra-kadabra and he's dead! You can do this, girl.'_ She hoped these words would make her best prepared for that one encounter. After a while of going through the woods, the girl noticed a trail of blood on the group. An uneasy feeling nagged at the girl, thinking what kind of harm could have come to Azera. **"Oh my god,"** she said in disturbance.

The hiker's spirit noticed the tracks too and said, **"That probably must be the lad. We should go and see."**

* * *

While watching the telepathic scene of what was going on in the battle, Pendra saw Eitri using his water magic to douse out the black flames had been taken controlled by a human in red armor. Then the villagers were taken by surprise when the black flames rekindled themselves. The ground beneath the flames cracked and became dark like it was being charred. The cracks went past the water barrier, cast by Eitri to protect the dragons from the human's control of the guard's fire, and beneath the villagers. The dragons looked down below themselves as if they were expecting something bad to happen. Then more black fires rose from the cracks and torched the villagers. Pendra was frightened by seeing his father in flames as he shouted, **"Dad!"**

The autumn dragoness and the hatchlings abruptly turned to him, wondering what he just saw. Danielle asked him, **"Pendwa, what happened?"**

The dragoness was mad at the imperial fleshcrowne for his disobedience and scolded, **"Pendra, did you ask someone to show you the fight?!"**

The male hatchling flinched under her harsh tone. Not wanting to get himself into trouble, he tried to save his skin by lying, **"Uh, no?"**

The autumn didn't believe him and questioned, **"Then why did you shout for your father?"**

Pendra's brown eyes shifted to the side for a bit before looking as he answered,**"Um... because I... uh... forgot to give him a present?"**

The dragoness was skeptical of his story and growled,**"I don't believe you, I can see that you're lying. Pendra, you are getting a time out. And you will stay there until your parents get back!"** Throwing her head in the direction of the cave's corner, she told him, **"Now get in the corner!"** The male hatchling grumbled under his breath as he walked over to the corner and sat there with a pout.

* * *

The magi Aquarian returned with a couple of stone dragons and said, **"I'm back now and I found these two willing volunteers to help out."**

Minerva looked at the stone dragons, observing their rock-like bulky bodies. They appeared to be strong. Being the earth-affinity dragons that they were, the woman had to wonder... **"You're stone dragons, aren't you? Can you do earth magic?"** she asked. The stone dragons both nodded in response. Then Minerva took out the blueprint and showed it to them. **"This is how we want our school built. Can you make it that way?"** she asked. The stone dragons studied the blueprint for a little while before they went past the two humans and got to work. They used their magic to quickly build floors, walls, rooms, and even the roof.

* * *

Pendra continued to see his father's vision of the fight. The battle looked to be tough on the villagers as the human warriors seemed to be dodging their attacks with ease and as a result, the dragons would sometimes accidentally hit each other. Not once did the humans ever suffer a casualty whereas they killed some of the villagers. The hatchling was feeling discouraged with the way the situation was turning out to be. It seems like the dragons probably won't win this fight after all. Then he saw a royal blue dragoness shouting sometime before his father's vision fell upon a blue-armored human who made a dash for the deeper part of the caves. Thus began the pursuit of the blue-armored human to try and stop him from going any further. But then, two black-armored humans stabbed two of the chasers before Pendra's father dropped to the ground all of a sudden. The hatchling gasped in shock, knowing his father had been hurt. The vision started blurry before the eyelids closed into everlasting darkness and then the noise of battle softened into dead silence. The hatchling thought his father must have gone to sleep in the middle of the fight, so he tried to wake him up. _'Come on dad, this is no time to be napping! The humans are going to get us, wake up!'_ There was no response, much to Pendra's disappointment. The hatchling tried again with more urgency in his tone, _'Dad, wake up! Now!'_ But still, nothing had changed. The more he tried to wake up his father, the closer he got to the grim conclusion that his father was dead. Pendra didn't want to believe it; his father couldn't be dead, he shouldn't be dead. He was supposed to come back to him alive and be there to tell his friends about how he killed the humans. But unfortunately, no amount of denial was going to change this harsh truth. Pendra's eyes started to water up with tears and a whisper escaped his breath, **"Dad."**

The female hatchlings tossed a ballooned Kylie to each other in a game of Kylie ball. The balloon hatchling laughed in fun as the others bumped her around with their paws and noses. But then the game stopped when they heard sobs from the corner. Kylie deflated back to normal and the hatchlings and their dragoness babysitter turned their attention to Pendra, who was crying to himself. They were all concerned for him as Danielle asked, **"Pendwa, what's wrong?"**

The imperial fleshcrowne sniffed and was about to answer, but the dragoness beat him to it first. She imagined that he must have seen his father get killed and decided not to be too hard on him as he was already in emotional pain. She said in a soft tone,**"You saw something horrible happen. Didn't you?"** Pendra nodded his head in confirmation of what he witnessed. The dragoness sighed in pity and told him, **"This is exactly why I didn't want any of you to see the fight. It isn't all fun and games as you think it is, people get hurt in these sorts of things. Not a pretty sight to see."** She went to join him in the corner as she told the other hatchlings, **"You four keep playing. I will try to cheer him up." **The female hatchlings just stood and looked at each other, feeling unable to play with their mood for it diminished by their concern for their friend. The dragoness softly stroked Pendra's back with her talon and murmured, **"You poor thing, I feel your loss."**

* * *

After a while of waiting for Axle's return, Atlas smelled his scent and anticipated his return from the hunt. She soon saw his form approaching the group. The magi greeted him with these words, **"Hey Axle, how did the hunt go?"**

As she waited for his answer, Violet started whispering to her, **"Atlas. Axle has something on his mind and not for the good, it seems. Maybe you should talk with him and see what is going on, just for a little while."** The vampire looked over her shoulder at Axle, who still looked like he was in deep thought.

The magi looked to Axle again, more specifically his facial expression. He definitely looked uncertain about something, but what could it be? Then she looked back at the vampire before replying, **"Alright, I'll see what his problem is."** Atlas went towards the dragon as her eyes briefly shifted to the side Violet was at and thought, _'You better not do anything fishy while I'm gone.'_ The magi knew she wouldn't need to worry much as there as Ohimia and Garin were with her; the former could let her through telepathy if Violet ever did something suspicious. After she reached Axle, who seemed more distance from everyone than normal, Atlas asked, **"Hey Axle, something up you want to talk about privately?"**

Axle snapped out of his trance and paid attention to her. **"I..."** he stuttered a bit. He turned as he said, **"I think a private talk will be fine."** They started walking from the group. The white dragon walked slowly enough though for the magi to come up beside him.

Once they were away from the others, Atlas asked, **"So Axle, Violet's told me that you seem to be in bad thoughts. Want to talk about it?"** She was concerned about him and wondered if there was anything she could do to help him out with his problems.

Axle kind of lowered his head a bit. **"I was thinking about my actions and if I was on this journey for a good reason. Not just because I was told by my father to do it,"**he said as they continued to walk.

The magi simply replied, indicating him to go on with his talk, **"Uh-huh."**

**"I also was thinking about my own desires. If really needing to reclaim Shadow Wind was the best way to go. It does trouble me that Dracul did kill my father, but..."** He went quite, almost if he wasn't sure of himself.

Atlas was dumbfounded by his reluctance to do the obvious solution. Was he actually hesitant to rescue his own people? She told him, **"What are you talking about? Of course you got take back Shadow Wind. That place is in hell with Dracul in charge. And as long as he's there, then everybody's going to suffer. You got to knock him off the throne and avenge everyone he's killed."**

Axle shook his head and replied, **"Vengeance only get more people killed. As for knocking Dracul off the throne, that's a bit more of a challenge in itself. First of all, Shadow Wind is run by more than one lord, but they take orders from the elder lords first. Simply put it, on a chess board, Dracul could be just a pawn in another person game and I am forced to play that game."** The dragon seemed a bit lost for a minute before he sighed.

Oh right, the magi had forgotten about the fact that Shadow Wind needs many lords to rule it. But vengeance gets more people killed? She didn't quite understand the logic behind that. Wouldn't getting rid of a bad apple keep the whole bunch from getting spoiled? If one avenged their loved one's deaths, how did it get more people killed? Back to Axle's topic, Atlas spoke in dismay, **"Great, so even if we get rid of Dracul, some other snake who's just as bad or worse will still keep Shadow Wind in hell."** There was Arch and he was a dragon lord. The end of Dracul doesn't mean the end of him. Just how many other lords were there who were behind the mess that was going on now? Did they need to take down each one before there was peace?

**"I'm afraid so. Each lord and elder that is on Dracul's side would have to be taken care of, permanently,"** Axle said soon followed by an unwilling sigh. **"And that is why I question if I should attempt to reclaim Shadow Wind back or if I should just remove Dracul, and all the other corrupted lords from power and leave Shadow Wind."**

Atlas knew that he didn't like to kill others, but she also knew that Dracul and his cronies would try to come back and take over if they weren't finished off. After all, Dracul did kill Axle's parents and became a lord again. But wait, did he just say "leave Shadow Wind?" The magi asked curiously, **"Leave Shadow Wind, why?"** She wondered what made him thought about that. Sure Shadow Wind would be well off under Mekarth and Juna, but why did Axle want to leave a city he held a high position in?

Before she could get an answer from him, a somewhat familiar voice spoke telepathically in her mind, _'Atlas, are you there? It's me, Rina. The dark blue dragoness who helped you with that squirrel. Listen, I need to tell you something and you might not like what you hear, or probably even believe it. Still...'_

It sounded like Rina was about to tell Atlas some bad news. The magi's lips almost turned itself into a frown and her eyes gave off a hint of seriousness. She was expecting to hear some kind of foreboding things from the Eternal Wind clan member. Atlas quickly said to Axle, **"Hang on, Axle. Someone's talking to me with telepathy." **Then she looked away from him and turned her head to the space between trees, almost as if she was now facing Rina in person. She asked, _'So what do you want to tell me?'_

The dragoness answered, _'It's about the Vulture Horde. I'm sure you've heard about it at some point. The thing is, they have a plan they are going to set in action once they are finished with something.'_

Atlas wondered if Aeolus probably had met the clansdragoness like she had. When Rina paused, the magi goaded her to speak some more, _'Yes, go on.'_ She wanted to hear what this dragoness had to say about the horde to know what was so important.

Rina told her, _'The plan is to wipe out every single human on this world. No prisoners, no slavery, no banishing. Only mass genocide. I have heard the news from my close friend and I know he is not the type to lie about information like this. Now, in case you believe me, I would like to ask you a question.'_ Her tone suddenly darkened as she said the following, '_Do you agree with Vulture Horde?'_

It sounded like Rina and her friend must have heard the horde's old agenda, something they reformed on. Confident in her knowledge and trust of her old friend, the magi smiled and answered, _'The mass genocide thing? Oh don't worry. The Vulture Horde's not going to do that anymore. Aeolus said that he's only going to kill the bad humans from now on. And I'm glad he's differentiating the good from them. Don't need any innocent blood getting spilled on their claws.'_

_'He said that?' _was the confused response that came from the dragoness.

_'Yes, he did,'_ Atlas confirmed.

Before the magi could say anymore, Rina decided to put the conversation on hold, _'One moment.' _The magi waited for a few moments before the clansdragoness asked her, _'Atlas, let me fill you in on details. I learned about this plan just a couple of hours ago. My friend learned about it yesterday, not long before he was teleported to me. When exactly did Aeolus say that he is no longer hunting down innocents?'_ And added after a short pause, _'Not only that, but I contacted him immediately after I've learned about this, just to confirm what my friend has said. And I'm afraid what he said is different from what you were told.'_

The magi stopped smiling and became confused as she asked, _'What? What did he say? Aeolus told me that these two nights ago.'_

'I asked him if he was planning to wipe out every single human in the entire world. He said yes, however they have other things to attend to before they will decide to start. Then I asked him why he wants to do that. In response...'

Rina trailed off for a bit before continuing. _'He listed everything bad that humans have done to him.'_

Atlas curled her mouth into an open frown, being shocked at what she just heard. Aeolus lied? That can't be right. Then the dark blue dragoness said mentioned that Aeolus wanted to kill because of all the things the humans did to him. Atlas replied, _'What? You got to be kidding me. Aeolus would never lie; he's always been honest with me. Always!'_ The bad things that happened to him were definitely true though. The disaster dragon had suffered far worse than she and probably Flarina ever did. Not to mention, no human in the world had ever shown him any real kindness like a few did to the first Firestar sisters. Another pause in the conversation started and Atlas waited to hear the clansdragoness's response to her denial.

But the only one to break the silence was Axle who asked her, **"Atlas, what's going on?"**

Atlas told the clansdragoness, _'Hang on, one moment.'_ The magi spoke to the dragon, **"I just heard someone say something about Aeolus. She said Aeolus was going to kill all humans. But he told me that he was going to spare the humans and this was two nights ago. But she heard him say it today."** She faced the ground, shaking her head and continued, **"But I'm not sure so about this."**She put her eyes back on Axle and continued, **"Aeolus has been honest with me for so long and he has never lied before. I don't know what the heck is going on. Their stories say the opposite and I don't know who's telling the truth."** She had a great deal of thrust in Aeolus and doubted that he would deliberately lie to her, but she also couldn't deny the times when Aeolus's stories took place either. There was clearly something wrong.

Axle looked at Atlas and told her, **"I'm sure Aeolus is a good guy. But if it bothers you that much, we might want to check in on him personally after we are done with the mountain. I need to check in with Juna and Mekarth about a few things as well."** Then he looked towards the mountain than the sky and said, **"We might want to get a move on here soon, it's starting to come close to mid-dawn."**

The magi looked up at the sky as well to see the sun's position. He was right; they still had a long way to go and they mustn't waste any more time. She agreed, **"You're right, we should get going."** Then turned around and started to head back to the group. The magi said to Rina, _'I'll talk to Aeolus later and see what's going on. Right now I got business to take care of.'_ After making it back to everyone else, Atlas said to everyone, **"Guys, we're ready to go! We need to get to Trident Mountain now."**

Ohimia, Garin and Violet ended their conversation and the lumina replied, **"Alright, we're coming."** Violet came down from the tree she was in and rushed over to Axle. After the girl got on his back, Axle took to the air, just slow enough for Atlas and the rest of the group to catch up as they headed to the mountain.

**"Well, here we go!"** Garin said. He launched his lithe human figure into the air and did a couple flips before falling in line beside Atlas and Axle.

* * *

After 10 minutes of getting the school built, Ronan whistled as he was impressed with their quick work. **"Impressive! Most impressive! That was really quick. Never before have I seen a building get set up so quickly. Well, I thank you for the facility construction."** He bowed to the dragons and commented, **"It looks great."**

The dragons bowed back to the man. They were pleased with his polite gratefulness and felt they need to show the same amount of respect back at him. The stone dragon on the left said, **"You're very welcome, my good man."**

The other stone commented,**"You're quite polite for a human. Say, are you a dragon sympathizer?"**

Just then Drake flew over and landed next to Ronan and Minerva. **"Not just a sympathizer," **said the man who patted his dragon friend's side. **"This is my partner, Drake."** Drake bowed his head to the magi and stone dragons. **"I also have this,"**Ronan said as he drew his sword. There were markings, engravings. **"This was given to me by my master before his death. He said it was crafted by dragons. One of very few swords to possess enchantment by the wisest of dragons. It is only verifiable by a dragon of great wisdom, though I can vouch it has saved me on number of times and some of those times, it felt as if it had some kind of protective power."** The dragons examined it before he sheathed it away.

Minerva looked at the sword with interest, seeing how beautifully engraved the markings were. The dragons looked back at the man as the Aquarian said, **"So you really are a friend of dragons and a warrior by the looks of it, too."**

Ronan nodded to the magi, **"I am. I was trained to kill and I've yet to meet a foe who could best me. I have no doubt that such a person exists though."**

The magi nodded in agreement and said, **"You might be right, young man. Well anyway, our work here is done. If you need anything else created, just let us know and we'll find dragons right for the job."**

Minerva replied gratefully, **"Thanks again, mister!"**

**"Our pleasure, miss. You all take care now,"** the Aquarian said before he and the stone dragons left.

Minerva turned to her boyfriend and said, **"So now I guess we go get some business loans for the equipment and stuff, right?"**

Ronan looked to her and said, **"Uh, yes. Frankly I'm amazed it was built so quickly. I figured it'd take over a month to get everything established, but at this rate we might be ready by the end of the week."** He was obviously beyond impressed.**"Let's just hope war doesn't break out, otherwise I'll be teaching soldiers who can barely hold a sword right, much less use one,"** he said with his eyes rolled.

The woman let out a chuckle in response. **"Well as long as there's peace, there's still hope,"** she said.**"Besides, I'm sure the Aquarians here will do a great job preventing war from happening here. So shall we go find a loaner now or do you want to take a break from working?" **she asked.

The man hummed, sounding uncertain. **"I suppose it would be best to get it done now rather than later. Let's do it,"** he nodded.

The woman nodded and replied, **"Sure. But first, I need to find out where the closest business loan office is. We can't go around getting lost trying to find it."** She thought about where to start, since she couldn't use a computer to search for such a place anymore. The alternatives to find one were a directory or simply asking someone where one is. The first option was easier, since some people would probably have no clue. **"Let's go to a bookstore and look in the yellow pages,"** she suggested.

Ronan smirked, **"Sure. I think there's a book shop a few blocks towards the inner section of the city."**

**"Then let's go there,"** she said before they along with Drake walked to the bookstore, so they could continue with their task of the school set up.

* * *

After 10 minutes of following the trail, Kathia and the ghost saw a body lying on the ground in a pool of blood. A sword was lying next to him. Recognizing who it was, the girl cried, **"Oh my gosh, it's Azera!"**

The hiker shook his head in pity and said, **"Poor lad, it looks like his wounds caught up to him."**

Not ready to accept that he was dead, the girl ran towards the mercenary and knelt down to check his pulse. The beat was really slow, perhaps he can still be saved. Kathia was resolved on her promise to not let the little girl down. She cried, **"Hang on, Azera. I'm going to try and save you!"** She searched his body for the wounds and began to use healing magic on them. After Azera was healed up, Kathia looked to the hiker's spirit and said, **"I'm going to take him back to his friend. Can you be on the lookout for anybody who's in sight as we go?"** She was going to need someone to watch her back in case Spinx attacks.

The hiker was happy to help, **"Sure thing, lassie!"** The girl struggled to lift up Azera's body and carry him on her back. The man was pretty heavy, due to his muscles adding weight to his body. With his weight going to slow her down, it would take a long time for her to return to the little girl. After putting Azera's arms over her shoulders, Kathia started to walk back to where the little girl was. Hiker floated by her, keeping a vigilant eye out on her surroundings.

* * *

The couple entered the bookstore while Drake stayed outside. The couple went to the nonfiction section, where Minerva looked in the shelves with the directories. She found the yellow pages book on the bottom-most shelf and picked it up. The one at home was outdated, now that some of the stores had been rearranged in Windfall. At first, the woman thought about paying and leaving, until she got an idea that there might be books about fighting techniques for Ronan here. Even though he had a master that thought him a lot, he probably didn't teach him all the techniques in the world. Thinking that learning more would be beneficial for the school, Minerva asked, **"Hey Ronan, before we make our purchases, do you want to see if we can find books that teach you how to fight?"**

Ronan shook his head. **"A book has limits to what can be taught. You can learn everything about fighting from books, but they can never teach you to adapt, to change tactics and to outsmart your opponent. We'll do fine without books."**

Minerva thought he would miss out the new techniques they would find in books, but then again, what would she know about fighting anyway? She decided to support his decision and said, **"Well if that's how you feel, then I guess we're done here. Come on, let's go to the cashier now. Maybe we'll pick up a chocolate bar there."** There was this milk chocolate hazelnut bar she wanted to try. If it was still being sold, then she would happily take her chance to buy one now and break a piece to share with Ronan. They went up to the cashier area, where the woman picked up the chocolate bar she was hoping to get. They paid for the book and the chocolate. The items were put in a bag and then the couple went out the first set of the double doors to sit at the bench that was in the entrance area. Minerva took out the yellow pages and looked through the book for the address of a business loan. After she found one, she pointed to the address and said, **"There, I found one! We should try over there first and see what they can do for us."**

Her boyfriend grinned eagerly and said, **"Well then let's go, no time to waste."**

**"Alright then,"** replied Minerva. Then they left the store and went onto Drake's back. The woman told him where to go and how to get there. The dragon followed her directions and flew towards their destination.

They finally got to the business loan place. The humans hopped off of Drake and went inside the building. There, they went up the desk where the receptionist was done organizing some papers. The man asked, **"Hello? Are you here to get some loans?"**

Minerva answered with a nod,**"We are. We need some funds to get some things for our school."**

**"Just one moment,"** the man said. Then he called the loaner to let her know that she has business to do. After a brief exchange of words, he hung up and said to them, **"Okay, your loaner, Mrs. Bernstein will see you in her office. It'll be right at this door."** He pointed to the office.

**"Thank you, we'll see her now,"** said Minerva. Then she went over to the office where a plumb brunette woman was sitting at her desk.

Mrs. Berstein asked, **"Greetings, I hear you need some funds for a school you want to improve." **

The blonde nodded, confirming the loaner's assumption and explained, **"Yes. You see? We need to buy some expensive training equipment for our fighting school and to have a graphic designer make advertisements. I don't know what the estimated cost for all the things we need is, but I can imagine that it would probably be around twenty thousand gold."**She turned her head to the assassin, looking for a confirmation on her guess. **"Would it, Ronan?"** she asked. She never got to check the store first for the prices, which she should have done first. Gods, they must look silly coming here without knowing the exact amount they need.

Her boyfriend appeared to think for a moment before saying, **"I'd estimate twenty minimal but at max... I'd have to say forty. Weaponry alone is not cheap and I'm not certain how much equipment will cost. The advertisements will most likely cost the most."** He added, **"Of course with time and how many students we get, we'll be able to pay off the loan quicker."**

Minerva awaited the answer for a few seconds until the man told her his assumed price costs. Forty sounded too cheap, unless the equipment Ronan planned to get wasn't too cheap. Darn, she should have tried to research the costs and look for what equipment they need before coming here. The blonde really felt embarrassed for making this rash decision to come here first. Now what would she do to not embarrass herself any further? Perhaps she should just request a not too expensive loan for now and then go to the equipment store? That didn't seem like too bad an idea. She asked, **"How about we get a thousand gold loan for now? We'll pay her back with the remaining gold we don't use and then pay off the rest with the profits we make?"**

Ronan sighed, **"Minerva, how about we tell her what we will need and she can get us an estimate of how much gold we will need for what we want to get?"**

Minerva replied, **"Okay, I guess that would work."** Then she listed the things they thought they would need, **"So we need wooden swords, dummies and... uh... what else?"**

The man sat forward and said, **"Wooden swords and steel swords. Something for punching and kicking... lumber to build wooden dummies, which I can do myself I just need to afford the wood... Perhaps uniforms and weights?"**

Looking back to the loaner, Minerva asked her,**"So you got all that?"** The older woman nodded and said yes. **"How much would it be if we had twenty of each?"** the blonde asked.

Mrs. Berstein took up her pencil and notepad as she replied, **"I'll have to calculate that first."** After writing down the numbers of the estimated prices for the needed supplies as she mumbled out the numbers, the loaner told the couple, **"And that will come up to a total of 5080 gold."**

Ronan looked surprised at the amount and said, **"If that's the case, then I think a simple 7000 gold will be more than enough."** He looked to his girlfriend as if waiting to hear her confirmation.

Minerva agreed with his suggestion and nodded to the loaner, **"Yes, let's go with that for now."**

Mrs. Berstein took out a clipboard with a paper on. She told them, **"Alright then, please fill out this form and I will give you your funds."** After she gave them to the blonde, Minerva took a pen off the desk and filled out the form before returning it to the loaner. The fat woman said, **"Alright then, I will send the money over to your bank account. It should be over to you by the end of the day. And we'll send you a letter by mail to let you know when the loan is due."**

Minerva said with a smile, **"Thank you, ma'am. I do hope our fighting school goes well so that we can pay you back."**

**"I hope so too,"** said the loaner who smiled back. **"Well anyway, have a good day you two."**

**"We will,"** replied the blonde. Then the couple left the office and went out of the building.

* * *

**Author's Note:** So once again, I decided to give this series a new name and it's called "A Dragon's Rage". I'll be making a journal on my DeviantArt account with a link to the poll about what you guys think about this name change. Also, here's a few interesting things from Ronan and I omitted in this chapter, since I usually focus on my characters' POV:

\- _Ronan was feeling excitement but also nervous. He wondered if this was the right choice for him. If it was the right path. He knew he could train a lot of skilled warriors but at what cost? What would be the end result of his work as a teacher? Would a new war spring? If so, what would he do? There were so many possibilities and it frightened him a little. The uncertainty._

\- _Ronan thought to himself, "The price of steel weapons is very cheap here. In the desert you have to work two years to get the money for a true steel blade."_

Anyway, I'm going to go finish up my New Years Eve fanart that should have been done two years ago.


	46. Akil, Literacy Class and Kidnappig

**Chapter 45: Akil, Literacy Class and Kidnapping**

As they left the building and Minerva asked Ronan, **"Okay now, what's next?"** They got the school built and the loans are in the process of being sent to her account.

The man smirked at her. **"Well, we've gotten so much done today, why don't we take the rest of the day off until tomorrow? Then we can gather our supplies and start setting up the school's inner workings."**

**"Okay,"** the woman responded, taking a liking to the idea. Some leisure time would be great after all the work they were putting into building up the school.

Ronan smiled and asked, **"What would you like to do?"**

The woman pondered her thoughts on what to do next. Her mind brought up the dragon literacy program that the ADR initiated. She would love to help dragons learn how to read, so that they can learn to interpret human-made signs and get by in society. Knowing where the program would be at, she said, **"Why don't we go over to the Summer Park Community Center? The ADR's over there teaching dragons how to read. Want to help?"**

Ronan smirked at Minerva's suggestion. **"I don't think I'd be of much help. Drake would but... I'd be better off acting as protection over there. Keeping gangs or terrorists from doing any more harm to the ADR."**His smirk changed to a smile.

Minerva smiled back and said, **"Well I suppose we can always use a guard in case we get attacked again. Come on, let's go there." **Then she went over to Drake and asked,**"Drake, can you take us over to the Summer Park Community Center?"** She told him where it would be at.

The dragon yawned, **"I think for once I miss the days of traveling across the land and getting into skirmishes... not exactly fond of being used as a 'taxi' as you humans call them."** The woman laughed while he smirked as they got on his back. He took off and flew to the park as Minerva instructed on how to get there.

* * *

As Aeolus and Firefly continued their sparring match, the horde leader heard Juna's telepathic yell, **"Aeolus, get over here and bring your medic. Now!"** She sounded like she wanted it done like yesterday and with urgency. Whatever the reason she to summon him, it must be an emergency that needed to be taken care of immediately.

Aeolus replied, _'I'll be there, right away.' _The leader stopped sparring with the crimson flare as he moved his head out of the way of the fireball. He told the pygmy, **"It looks like we'll have to cut our sparing session again. Firefly, why don't you train with Volkin? She'll need a partner when I take Hewey from her."**

The crimson flare replied, **"Okay."**

Aeolus contacted the healer dragon, _'Hewey, Juna needs us right now. Come with me to the Shadow Wind replica. Firefly will train with Volkin for now.'_

Hewey replied, _'Sounds like it must be important. Alright, I'll come.'_ The horde leader left the training ground as he telepathically let Volkin know that she will be training with Firefly. Hewey joined up with the leader and they went over to the city's replica.

There, they saw Juna looking over a chained green dragoness with ballista arrows stuck on her body like needles on a pin cushion. Beside her was a dead human, but the horde dragons paid no attention to him as human lives were of no concern. Aeolus told Hewey to go and heal her before he asked the halfling, **"Juna, who is this dragoness and what happened to her?"** The healer dragon removed the net and pulled out the closest ballista arrow out of the leg before he started to heal the wound.

Juna remained looking at the dragoness as she got healed up. **"Meet Akil, Axle's right hand general. The human next to her goes by the name of Shadow, Axle's fastest and deadliest message deliver in Shadow Wind. Simply put it, he sacrificed his life so she would escape,"** she said as she turned and picked up the arrow that the healer removed from Akil's leg. Aeolus looked to the dragoness and noticed that her scent smelled almost familiar. It smelled kind of like Atlas, perhaps she was a blood relative of hers. Juna looked over then arrow and then looked back at Akil for a few more seconds. The halfling grabbed both ends of the arrow and snapped the wooden shaft into two before she removed the metal part of it. She put the metal part up to the collar that was still around Akil's neck and cut it clean off, almost as if the metal collar was butter itself. While Hewey was still taking out arrows and healing Akil, Juna walked up to the dragoness's head and used the arrow's tip to cut through the bars that connected the muzzle to the collar. Then she removed the muzzle for Akil, but left the collar on her. **"Do not remove that collar at all," **the halfling said as sheathe the arrow's tip in the boots she now had from when she broke out of the prison. **"Now, I must find Mekarth."**

Aeolus walked towards Akil and said, **"Akil, is it? I am Aeolus, the leader of the Vulture Horde. We have allied ourselves with Axle and his siblings for the purpose of liberating Shadow Wind. I assume you must be one of Dracul's prisoners, am I correct?"** Then he asked, **"Has Dracul or any of his loyalists spoke of some valuable info that could be helpful to us?"**

The dragoness looked at the hoard leader and then turned her head to Juna, to whom she spoke to in an entirely different language than Draconic. Juna replied back in the same language. Aeolus had no idea what they had just said, but from the negative tone of the woman's voice, it did not sound good. The halfling shifted back to her dragon form and took to the air to look for her brother. Akil turned her attention back to Aeolus and said, **"Yes, I'm Akil. And no, there was no information to be gathered from Dracul or those things you call loyalists. If you ask me, those loyalists could go burn in hell."** She snarled out the last part a bit. It seems her temper flared for a bit before it seemed to soothe out a bit. She stood up, a bit weak but manageable, and looked around, observing her surroundings. The leader noticed fresh scars on her, but also ones that were quite old, like they were inflicted a long time ago.

The horde leader said, **"I see; I know soldiers don't like to mention any secrets to the enemy, but I was hoping they would have the misfortune to slip up. Well Akil, you look like you've been through some rough times. I'll let you rest in the village over there for now. Later, I may need you to teach the horde on how Shadow Wind fights so that we can be prepared for whatever moves they throw at us."**

Akil looked at him, almost the same way Juna looks at him, coldly and said, **"You want training from me, hmm. Fine then, but let me see how you fare right now."**

Aeolus noticed how untrusting she was. Either every Shadow Wind dragon was reluctant to teach outsiders or... Aeolus didn't get a chance to think more as the messenger had struck him at his chest with almost no warning at all. **"Gah!"** he cried out upon getting hit. It seemed she was not the type to wait around for an answer, but one that takes it at that moment. She followed her slash right up with a spin tail slap that struck him in the face. It seems she was really not allowing the horde leader to have time to react at all. The blow dazed him a bit that he had to shake his head to get back to his senses. Then the messenger followed up with an uppercut of her talons extended out, aiming for the chest area.

After getting struck by the dragoness's claws again, Aeolus decided he had enough of getting treated like a punching bag. It was time for his turn to strike back. The disaster dragon swiped back at her before he blew out his lightning breath. Akil seemed not to be weak at all, even in her current state. She took the full blow from Aeolus's swiping attack, but dodged the lighting even at point blank range. Then she countered with sweeping his feet out from under him and pinning his body down by putting her feet on his neck and right wing. The disaster dragon snarled as he struggled to free himself from her before he retaliated by kicking up at her underbelly with his hindlegs to throw her off. Then he got up and jumped midair, before he glided around and blew down his lightning breath again. The dragoness slide across the sand for a bit than jumped back from the lightning bolts. She spread out her wings and with a powerful wind force from them, created a cloud of sand to throw at the horde leader. He shut his eyes shut when sand made contact with his face. Luckily none of the grainy substance got into his eyes. He flapped his wings to create a gust of wind that would blow back down the sand cloud. At the same time, Akil's claws made contact with one of his wings and drew blood. The horde leader opened his eyes tilted away from her before she could do any more damage. After flying up higher, he cast a tornado beam at her. But all she did was smile a bit as she took to the air and dodged his beam with no effort at all. Aeolus thought, _'She's pretty agile. She's dodging my ranged attacks as good as Juna did. I wonder if they teach their warriors there how to evade like that.'_ It would be beneficial for the horde if they could avoid arrows and breath attacks with ease.

Akil climbed higher and faster than he did. Once she was high enough and was angled correctly, she dived right towards his back. The horde leader crashed belly-flat onto the ground. Apparently, he was disadvantaged with the dragoness weighing down and being unable to turn over to free himself, but this fight was far from over. Aeolus used his wind magic to create a windy wall around himself and then closing it in to create a vortex underneath himself that would lift him up off the ground. The horde leader used Eitri's stone and teleported himself away from Akil. Then he turned the vortex into a tornado, hoping to trap Akil in it. Aeolus took in a breath of air and was about to blow lightning at the tornado, but then he saw the silhouette of Akil flying in the same direction as the rotation of the wind, causing her to gain speed. The faster she moved, the farther away she got from the center. _'What?'_ thought the surprised Aeolus.

Soon after about 15 seconds, the messenger was far enough away from the tornado to escape its grasp. She still kept the rotation of the tornado, flying just out of its threat range, but slowing down until she was slow enough to land. **"You are a real pest, you know that. Always relying on magic to win your battles. What a joke!"** she yelled to Aeolus before she turned and started to walk away. She sounded a little disappointed in his ability in fighting.

Aeolus huffed, not caring what she thought about his fighting skills. It looks like Akil won't be training the horde, but it's alright. He can always send out spies over to where she came from, so their espionage on the army's fighting ability will give the horde clues on what to expect and how to prepare for them. Plus, there was always Atlas to learn from. Her being the recurring dragon champion meant that her skills used to win tournaments would be useful for the war against Dracul and Arch. When she returns from Trident Mountain, he will ask her to teach the dragons. Aeolus decided to leave the green dragoness alone for a bit, so that her anger will cool off for a bit. He went back to where the other dragons were and decided to end the sparring session. **"Vulture Horde, it's time to take a break."** The horde stopped fighting and relaxed, turning their eyes upon their leader. Aeolus hinted about lunchtime and continued, **"Feel free to go out and hunt if you need food."**

Bam smiled, enjoying the thought of eating up a delicious meal. **"Sweet! I can't wait to eat more of those prickly pears." **Then the navy blue dragon rethought, **"Though I should probably eat something different."** Having the same thing to eat could feel boring and make the taste bland; a variety would be more mouth-watering. He looked around at the dragons and asked, **"Anybody want to come with?"**

Akil approached him as she spoke up, **"I'll come, but only because I'm hunger. And I rather get my own food instead of letting someone else get it for me."**

Bam replied with a smile, **"Okay, no problem. I'll be going over to where I found the prickly pears. Maybe there will be some food around there for you."** Then they left the desert and went in the direction, he found the pears among the cacti.

* * *

As the autumn dragoness continued to comfort Pendra, they heard the sounds of metal banging against stone outside the nursery. Knowing that there was a human approaching, the dragoness told the hatchlings,**"Everyone, get over to that corner over there. There's a human coming!" **

The hatchlings became scared as they all screamed and Pinky cried, **"Oh no, a human! It's going to get us!"**

Smasp cried as well, **"I don't want to die!"** Her mother let go of Pendra to let him join the others who all ran to the corner furthest away from the cave way and huddled there together.

The dragoness stood fearlessly and watched the cave way as she waited for the human to come, so that she could blow down an inferno of flames at him before he even gets the chance to attack. As the sounds of movement drew nearer, a draconic scent could be smelled, but it didn't belong to any of the villagers. Even more strange, was the absence of human scent. The dragoness found this to be peculiar and confusing. She thought, _'Strange, there should be a human coming, but I'm smelling a dragon instead.'_ She thought about going outside to look who it is, but decided against it, for it could be a trap set up by the human who was using this scent to disguise his own. The sounds suddenly came to a stop, almost as if they were never there. Soon, the scent followed. The dragoness sensed that something was wrong. Why was there this sudden silence? What was the person waiting for? It was a few seconds later that the sound of something being thrown through the air could be heard. A large blue scythe flew through the air right at the dragoness. She got startled and her cyan eyes went wide. The weapon's curved blade struck her in the chest, causing the dragoness to let out a pained scream.

The hatchlings gasped in shock as Smasp shouted, **"Mommy!"** Pinky let out a horrified scream, worrying how badly did their mother get hurt. The dragoness dropped to her side and writhe in pain as blood spilled from her wound. Then a human in blue armor appeared out of thin air. He ran past the dragoness and made a dash towards the hatchlings, who all let out terrified screams and backed all the way into the corner as if this was the safe space that would protect them from the big bad ape coming to kill or take them away into slavery.

The dragoness heard their screams and looked around to see the warrior going towards them. In his hands were two metal rings. Thinking that he was going to make new slaves of them, she glared at the man and shouted, **"Stay away from them, you fiend!"** She considered spewing a fireball at him, but decided against it as that would put the hatchlings in harm's way, since the man was close to them.

When the man got to the hatchlings, he reached for only two of them: Danielle and Kylie. He went to grab them by the necks to put on the small collars that were concealed in his hands. The Firestars sisters screamed and tried to beat at the man to let them go. Danielle screamed, **"No, wet me go!"**

Kylie cried, **"I dun wan to be a swave!"**

The whiptail telepathically called to her aunt for help. _'Aunt Atlas, a human's going to take me away. Help me!'_ she screamed. She waited to hear from the magi, but she got nothing in return. The hatchling tried again, _'Aunt Atlas, help!'_ Again, there was no response. Even Kylie did the same thing and got no word from their aunt. The human than took a link of chain and pulled it though the rings on the collars as if he was making sure it was firm and secure. Then the sisters yelped, when he tugged their chains. As they were dragged away from the other hatchlings, their fearful tears turned halfway into those of frustration. Why wasn't their aunt answering their pleas? Their lives were in danger and they needed help now. Danielle and Kylie started to wail after their aunt failed to hear them.

The human stopped at the dragoness, who growled at his presence. He grabbed the end of the scythe from her wound and shook the blood off it before he sheathed it. The dragoness snarled, **"You let these poor hatchlings go!"**

The man looked down to the Firestar sisters and told them, **"If you have anyone you wish to say goodbye to, now would be the time."**

The sisters refused to leave their friends' cave as Danielle wailed, **"I dun wan to say goodbye! I wan my aunt Atwas!"**

Kylie sobbed, **"Let me go!"** The sisters tried in futile to break free and return to their friend.

The dragoness bared her teeth at the man as he spoke in perfect draconic language, **"It's best you don't try anything. It would be wrong to leave your children without a mother. Also, I won't let anything happen to these two to the best of my ability, but I can't promise anything with the others. One more thing. That wound is not grave, but it will get infected if not tended to soon."** Before she could say anything to him, the man took off his helmet. It was obviously a human, but something about his eyes told something else. His eyes were that of a dragon. His skin was black and his hair was almost the color of silver. The mother was speechless and amazed. This man might seem like a halfling, but he wasn't. His scent was like that of a dragon's and not a human's. The autumn asked him, **"What are you?"**

After feeling the shame of not doing anything to help out of fear, Pendra gathered up his courage to save the younger sisters and avenge his father. He charged at the man, baring his fangs and growled heroically, **"I'll defeat you, human!"**

The dragoness thought the imperial fleshcrowne to be crazy trying to pick a fight with a full-grown warrior. Fearing that he would get hurt or killed, she called out to him, **"Pendra, no!"** The male hatchling bit at the "man's" leg and tried to pierce his hard armor, his teeth failing to break the metal.

The "man" looked down at the hatchling and placed the helmet on the ground before gently removing him from his leg. Then he pressed hard on a few pressure points, causing Pendra's eyes to go wide with shock before he became paralyzed and fell limp to the side. The dragoness gasped in shock as her daughters worriedly cried out, **"Pendra!"** The man placed him next to the dragoness who looked at the fleshcrowne and noticed him still breathing. She was somewhat relieved; it looks like he was going to be okay.

The "human" put his helmet back on as he said, **"What I am is a dragon. A cowardly dragon that only follows orders given to him."** He then picked up Danielle and Kylie, not letting go of them as he turned and started to walk away from the dragons. The dragoness wondered if he was a slave who chose to stay with his masters, even after the Spell had freed the dragons. After crawling two steps to try and follow him, the "human" told her, **"Oh and don't follow. The others might end up killing you from the moment they see you."** Then he took off running down the cave.

Danielle shouted her aunt's name one last time with all the frustration and fear she had, _'AUNT ATLAS!'_ The autumn dragoness looked down to the ground in shame of herself and let out a sad sigh. She had failed the Firestar sister's aunt in keeping them safe, the task the village had promised to do. She could only hope that everyone would be able to forgive her. As the "man" carried Danielle and Kylie on the way to the cave entrance, they saw wounded and defeated villagers carrying dead bodies of those who slain in the battle towards the deeper section of the cave. The dragons stopped moving when they heard and saw the screaming hatchlings being taken away. Their expressions were that of shock, worry and anger at the kidnapping. When the "man" made it outside the cave, the sisters could see the dead body of Quartz, who apparently had been killed, lying on the side of the entrance. Also outside were 6 of the villagers who had been captured by the black-armored humans, who were in the process of putting collars on them. Among them was a human in red armor and Arch, who was holding the other guard down as if he was a hostage. The red dragon guard had been wounded with his legs badly damaged almost like they had been crushed by something. The villagers heard the crying hatchlings and looked behind them. Stunned expressions had formed on the dragons' faces.

Once the blue-armored "human" was far enough away, he stopped and set both sisters on the ground, putting his foot on the chain and sat down. **"There is no point in trying to call for your aunt. She can't hear you and you can't hear her,"** he said to them, kind of feeling their pain. **"We are to wait here until they are done with whatever they are doing," **he said as he wrapped the chain around his foot and crossed his legs in a mediation pose. With this knowledge of knowing their aunt not being able to hear them, the sisters were now more terrified than ever. They tried run and pull their chains free, but man's strength made it too tough to do so. If they can't summon help or get away, then what can they do to save themselves? The sisters sobbed some more after giving up and feeling too helpless to get away from this man. Then they saw with teary eyes a golden massive shape approaching them and their captor. They weren't pleased to find that it was Arch, Dracul's accomplice from the attack on the Incarus brothers. The sisters thought he was going to hurt them, too. They went away from him to the farthest point their chains would allow them to go. Danielle ducked down defensively and placed her talons over her head, while Kylie stood shaking with her hands held together under her chin, watching to see what this fearsome beast would do.

Arch placed his claw on the chain and sent a small jolt of lighting down it, causing the sisters to let out shrieks from the shock. Danielle looked at the gold dragon through teary eyes and wailed, **"Waaah, dun hurt me!"**Kylie just let out a loud sob in response.

When the dragon turned his head to look at the "human", who seemed to have felt the shock, there on the "man's" face was the look of anger. Arch took his paw off the chain, turned halfling and slugged him in the face. The halfling snarled, **"Remove that damn look from your face right now or I'll remove it for you."** The "man" did what he was told like an obedient slave.

Arch grinned at the hatchlings and went to reach for the chain again, but what met his hand was the blue glove of the "man's" armor. The "man" told him, **"That is enough Arch. Leave the hatchlings alone now. The mission is completed, so can we just go home now?" **

The halfling lord pulled his hand away from his grip and snapped back, **"Don't forget on what is being held, so learn your place and leave me alone to have my fun."** Then he teleported everyone to a courtyard in front of a large government building. In the center of the courtyard were ten poles and on all but two were humans, who all wore the same kind of clothing. All of them had a white golden trim type of clothing and they were all dead. All of them have starved to death. Arch went and grabbed the chain that was attached to the hatchlings and attached it close by the pole that was emptied and locked it in place. Then he teleported away, leaving the man and the hatchlings behind. The man stood up and started to leave the hatchlings in the open of the courtyard. The Firestar sisters were now let alone to cry by themselves until their eyes and mouths became exhausted from being able to produce anymore tears and sobs respectively.

* * *

Drake landed just outside the Summer Park Community Center. Ronan helped his girlfriend down before he told the dragon, **"Drake, this time, you get to help some people... others of your species. I'll be guarding the perimeter. Keep an eye on Minerva; if anything happens, get her out."** He patted his friend's side before he climbed up the building and began his task.

Drake looked at Minerva and said to her, **"Lead on, milady." **

The woman took the lead and went inside the building through a human-sized door. The other door, which Drake went through, was for large dragons so that they'll be able to get in. Minerva knew which room the program would be in, but she didn't know where exactly it would be in since this was her first time coming to this community center. They went up to the receptionist, who saw them approaching. The woman asked, **"Excuse me, do you know where the room 1C is?" **

The receptionist nodded and answered, **"Of course, you go down that hallway and it'll be on the second door to your left."**

Minerva followed the man's instruction and went to the room's door. She opened it to see the ADR volunteers getting the literacy class started as they helped each other to set big textbooks on each oversized desks. The blonde said to her dragon friend, **"Looks like they haven't started yet. Let's go get you introduced to my friends."** She went over to the person in charge and greeted with a smile, **"Hello, Ms. Linsen!"**

The brown-haired woman with glasses turned to her with a surprised smile and said, **"Hello Minerva, what brings you here?"**

The blonde responded, **"Ms. Linsen, this is my friend, Drake. We're here to volunteer to teach dragons how to read."**

Drake bowed his head to the older woman, **"A pleasure, young lady."**

The teacher enjoyed the compliment with a smile and said, **"Why thank you, sir! It's great that Minerva found a dragon to help teach others to read. I'm sure he'll be more of an excellent role model for them than any of us humans will."**

Minerva nodded in agreement, **"I'm sure of that, too."** Looking up at the dragon, she continued, **"Right, Drake?"  
**  
The dragon nodded his head, **"We dragons live long lives. When a dragon reaches his or her first century of life, it becomes clear that part of our duty to our race is to teach and pass on the wisdom we have learned. The older we get, the more wisdom we obtain, the more we must teach."** He looked around the room at the few early students, who mostly consisted of hatchlings. A couple of them were doing some roughhousing to pass the time. Drake said, **"Some of these young dragons look as rowdy as some of your human teenagers on the streets. A little discipline may be in order. Wouldn't you agree?"**

The teacher nodded and agreed with him. **"Yes, it would most certainly help. This is a learning program after all and everybody needs to be mature about this, whether they be dragons or not."** She pushed her glasses back into place and continued, **"Anyway, we'll be having lunch soon before the program starts at one o'clock. Is there anything you like us to get you, Mr. Drake?" **

Drake shook his head and declined, **"No, there is nothing I require. These rowdy young dragons simply need to be shown who is in charge and that it is not them."** He glanced to the hatchlings whose playfight had taken them closer to the supplies. One of the volunteers had to tell them to be careful and play safer, so that they don't damage the supplies by accidents.

Ms. Linsen said, **"Well alright then. If you change your mind, lets us know."**

* * *

Once they reached the group of cacti, Bam picked off a few pears and started eating them. He enjoyed the sweet taste of the juices on his tongue. As he ate more of the pears, he noticed that the green dragoness wasn't eating any. Thinking that the fruits weren't a part of her diet, he asked, **"Hey, do you not like pears?"**

The dragoness looked at the pear with wondering eyes, almost as if debating on eating it. She study the pear carefully and soon removed it from the prickly thing that held it. After she tried it, her eyes lit with surprise and expressed delight at the taste. The dragoness said, **"Surprised that it's good, but me eating too many of these might get me sick. Do you by chance know where there is some prey at?"**

The dragon shook his head and said, **"Nope, this is as far as I've been outside the village. Maybe my cousin, Aeolus, might know, since he went out to hunt with me this morning. I'll talk to him."** He made a telepathic bond with the horde leader and started, _'Hey Aeolus.'_

His cousin's voice replied in his mind, _'What is it, Bam?'_

The navy blue asked, _'Did you find yourself some breakfast today? I'm trying to get this dragoness here some prey.'_ If his cousin didn't find any animals in the desert, then Bam would have to ask another horde member or a get a magi to warp them to the jungle.

Aeolus answered, _'I found some flamingos at a river, that I never got to eat until now.'_

Bam asked, _'So you over there?'_

_'Yes.'_

A smile appeared on the navy blue's face. He would be wonderful having the company of a family member while they all ate lunch together. _'Sweet! We'll meet you there! Say uh, how do you get to the river?'_ he asked. It was better safe than sorry to ask. It wouldn't do any good for them to get lost in the heat while try to find the river.

The horde leader answered, _'Just continue go straight south from where we go out to train. It'll take a mile to get there.'_

_'Gotcha!'_ Bam understood. After the bond was cut, he looked to the dragoness and told her, **"Come on, we're going to the river. He says he found some flamingos there."** The pair started going on their way to the river. The dragoness followed silently behind him, but every now and then, there was a mutter from her in another language that did not sound good. Bam heard her strange language and noticed that it wasn't human as he and every slave has understood the language they learned from their masters. Turning his head to her, he asked, **"Hey, what kind of language is that? I've never heard it before."**

The dragoness answered, **"It's Shadow Wind's native tongue. Not hard to understand; just a bit tricky to speak. So how long till we get to the river?"** She sounded a little bit impatient with the speed they were going.

The navy blue answered, **"Well Aeolus said that it would take like a mile to get there from the village. So right now, we only got like half way to go." **The dragoness remained silent on the way, her expression still held a bit of disappointment. Bam wondered if she was one of those grumpy types who were generally found displeasure in almost everything.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Sorry for not showing you the villager's battle against Arch's forces in this chapter and last one. But remember, this story is supposed to focus on my main characters from here on out until the big event. Minor ones like the horde members will have to be seen on other player's gift stories. So anyway, as of the one and only vote on the poll I made. The series will now be renamed "A Dragon's Rage."

Here's why Drake called Ms. Linsen a young lady: _Being over 200, Drake enjoyed calling women 'young lady'. His way of having a little fun with humans._

And a little fun fact about Akil: _She thought about her survival training Axle gave her when he was around, and one lesson was, Eat anything that is food, even if it does not agree with you. It was a weird lesson, but now was the time to put it tot he test. She study the pear carefully and soon removed it from the prikely thing that held it and tried it. To her surprise it was sweet, but a bit bitter at the same time as if it was like a orange. Though she rather eat meat than eat fruits, food is still food._

Ms. Linsen (c) me  
Lucain (the blue-armored man) (c) lorddraco8967


	47. Spinx's Past

**Chapter 46: Spinx's Past**

After a while later, Kathia finally made it back to the little girl, who seemed to rested well now that the teen had returned with Azera. But by now, Kathia was feeling very tired. Her shoulders ached from the weight of man's arms on her and she was panting. Putting him down on the ground, the redhead said hoarsely, **"I am never... ever... carrying another person... ever again."** She dropped herself on her bottom to the ground and decided to try and relax after all the work she did coming her.

The two ghosts looked to each other as the hiker grinned and said, **"My brother like that, too, when he had to carry a fat guy from McGreasy's all the way to the gym for him to lose that weight."** The female spirit laughed with him.

The child ran up to Kathia and hugged her tightly as she cried out in joy, **"Oh, thank you Kathia."**

Kathia got hugged by the girl and grinned at her, feeling like a hero to her. She said, **"Hey, no problem. I just did what I had to do. That's all."**

The hiker teased, **"Yeah, you say that after complaining about having to carry that man there." **The redhead shot him an annoyed frown and the two ghosts laughed at her.

The child looked up at Kathia and smiled up to her before she let go. She looked at Azera, who was now starting to move a bit, and said, **"I think Azera is going to wake soon."** A few seconds later, the man opened his eyes and blinked a couple of time before he sat up. He stayed there in silence as he almost looked to the ground. The mercenary must be confused as to how he ended up here.

Kathia was glad to see that her effort to save his life had succeeded. But she wanted to make sure that he was really okay before she would leave to return to Sundown. She asked him, **"Hi Azera, I didn't think we'd see each other again so soon. So uh, are you feeling alright now? That girl here told me what happened, so I took you back to her and healed you."**

Azera said still nothing, but got up and put his sword back in the belt holder. He then looked at the tree and said, **"I'm fine, and thank you."** He walked over to a tree and leaned against it. **"So how much did the child tell you?"**

Kathia told the whole story, **"She said that you were hurt and that you were going to the mountain where Spinx is at. She got really worried and tried to look for you, but couldn't find you. So I had to go and bring you back, which leads us to here."** Then she scolded him, **"Seriously, don't worry a child like that. What if you got killed? Can you imagine how devastated she would be?" **

**"Like I care,"** the man said back in a harsh tone. The teen flinched in shock; even the ghosts were just as stunned. Azera got off the tree and started to walk away. Then a shadow flew over his head. They looked up and saw three dragons and a halfling. **"Take the child with you, Kathia. I don't need her slowing me down. Don't ever come looking for me again,"** the mercenary snapped at Kathia, but more towards the child. The child kind of sunk her head down when Azera took off running after the dragons that just flown over.

The redhead furrowed her brows and said, **"Sheesh, what's his problem?"** Then she turned and saw the girl crying. The small sniff and tears running down her cheeks were more than enough evidence to show that she was hurt. Kathia frowned, feeling sorry for the child who had been ruthlessly abandoned just like that. _'What a jerk!'_ she thought with anger at the mercenary. Placing a hand on the girl's face and caressing it, the mage said, **"You poor thing, you didn't deserve that kind of treatment from him. Come on, let's go over to Sundown. There's people way nicer than he will ever be."** Not knowing where the camp will be, she looked to the hiker's ghost and asked him,** "So uh, do you know where the camp is at?"**

The hiker shook his head and answered, **"I'm 'fraid not, lassie."**

The woman's ghost also said, **"I don't know where it is either."**

It looks like Kathia will have to enlist the help of another ghost to guide her. She told the woman, **"Okay, I'll send you back to the afterlife. I'm going to see if someone else can get me there."** After she returned the female ghost to the realm of the dead, the mage called for another spirit, **"Oh someone who knows the way from here to the camp of Sundown, I summon thee." **

A ghost of a hunter in 18th century clothing appeared before her. He bowed before her and said, **"At your service, my lady."** He straightened up again and said, **"Now come, I will lead you to Sundown." **

Kathia turned to the hiker's spirit and told, **"We're going now. I need you to follow us and make sure that necromancer isn't around. I don't want any trouble from him again."**

The hiker obliged, **"Got it, lassie!"** Then they followed the hunter's spirit through the woods on the way back to Sundown.

The child slowly stopped crying and spoke up, **"No, Kathia, I don't deserve it. He have already risked his life for me twice in only a day."** She sobbed out, **"I'm only a burden to him, and I will only be a burden to you and your whole camp."** After she said that she ran in the complete opposite direction from where the group was going.

The teen and ghosts stopped as Kathia called out to her, **"Hey wait!"** The redhead ran after her to try and stop her from going into whatever dangerous creature or person was out there. But unfortunately, the child was going faster than she was, widening the gap between them every second. Kathia was in disbelief as to how a child's short legs would be able to outrun her longer legs, given the sizes of both girls. Soon, the child was no longer in sight. The teen stopped running and threw her fist down as she cursed, **"Damn it, she's too fast!"**

The two ghosts caught up to her and the hiker said, **"Forget it, lassie. You're ne'er gonna catch her. She's probably long gone by now."**

But Kathia didn't want to give up on finding her just yet. She told the hiker, **"But still she needs to be found. I can't leave her out there with that killer, Spinx. He'll murder her. Look, I need you to look for her and make sure she's safe. I'm going to go back to camp and form a search party there."**

The hiker questioned her plan, **"I'll do it, but are you sure you don't need anybody lookin' out for you?"**

The teen assured him, **"I'll be fine. I can watch out for you-know-who as I go."  
**  
**"Okay then,"** said the nodding hiker. Then he flew off to look for the girl as Kathia and the hunter's spirit went on to Sundown.

* * *

After lunchtime was over, it was now time for the educational program to start. A bunch of dragons, young and old, entered the room. Among the students was a red-winged brunette halfling boy in his late teens wearing ragged clothes. The guy went up to Ms. Linsen and got her attention, **"Hey lady."**

The teacher asked, **"Yes?"**

He asked, **"I know this thing is to teach dragons only, but I want to know if halflings can learn too. I mean we are part-dragons."**

Ms. Linsen nodded, confirming, **"Of course halflings can learn here. You're dragons just like the other ones here."  
**  
The halfling grinned, **"Sweet! I'm finally gonna learn how to read all those signs the humans have all over the world."** Then a sly smirk formed on his face, **"Maybe I'll learn how to read some of that porn, too."**

The teacher nodded slowly, weirded out by the halfling's perversion. She said, **"Uh-huh... Well let's hope you learn well from this session. Anyway, class is about to start. So take your seat while I speak to everyone."** After the halfling flew up one of the desks, Ms. Linsen stood at the center of the front and greeted the class, **"Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to the Association of Dragon Rights' literacy program. I am your teacher, Ms. Linsen."** Then she pointed her fanned hands at Minerva, Drake and everyone else who signed up to teach. The woman introduced them, **"And these are the volunteer mentors."** Minerva flashed a friendly smile at the observing dragons. Drake bowed his head to the class. He gave a piercing glare as if he was seeing ones might be potential troublemakers and class clowns. Minerva saw a dragonet looked around at the place and drummed his front talon's toes. He looked to the side and grinned mischievously. A bright pink dragoness next to him caught him looking away from the teacher and told him to pay attention. The dragonet turned his eyes back onto Ms. Linsen, who continued speaking, **"Our purpose here to teach every one of you how to read our language, so that you will understand everything that we have written in human society. Whether they be street signs, books, lists of rules and every other thing else written. We promise you that by the end of this course, you will have learned everything such as the alphabets, grammar and pronunciation. We, the ADR and our volunteers, will do the best we can to educate you."** Then she informed them, **"Now on your desks will be the language textbooks. They are written in draconic, which we have learned from dragons we helped rescued, for your convenience and act as a guide to help you learn more about the language. These are to stay here in this class as they cost a lot of money to replace them. Now before we begin this class, does anyone have any questions?"** She looked from one side to the other, looking for any dragon who had something on their mind. When not a word was spoken, the teacher resumed, **"Alright then, we will now start our lesson. The first thing we'll learn is the alphabet and I will write them down in both languages."** She turned to the blackboard behind her and took up a chalk stick to list the first few letters of the alphabet; the ones above in human language and the ones below in draconic. Ms. Linsen told them the human letters were and how they translated.

As the teacher continued with the alphabet, Drake roamed amongst the young dragons, eyeing each one of them and ensuring they paid attention. Minerva just stood in her place and looked around at the students. Pretty soon, she noticed one of the dragonets' movements on Drake. She wondered what he was doing. Was he trying to get his attention or bother him for fun? The adult dragon lightly swatted his tail against the dragonet's head. **"Pay attention,"** he spoke to him without looking at him as he resumed his scan of the class. The dragonet snorted with a pout before the bright pink next to him quietly told him to stop playing around and listen to the teacher.

Ms. Linsen was onto the letters M through Z, explaining how they were pronounced and written. The teacher said, **"So now that we've covered the whole alphabet of the human language, I am now going to divide these letters into vowels and consonants."** She erased the last letters off with the blackboard eraser and then used the chalk to write the whole alphabet, excluding Y, into two groups: vowels and consonants. Y was written on the rightmost part of the board. Turning back to her students, Ms. Linsen explained, **"As you know, vowels are speech sounds made with your mouth open and your tongue not touching your teeth or lips. Consonants on the other hand are made with trapped sounds. The Y however is a special case; it can be used as either a vowel or a consonant, depending on which words used."**

Drake watched the dragonets closely. He helped any who were struggling to learn. The dragonets were thankful for his help in getting them caught up to their lessons. One of them nodded and muttered, **"Thank you."**

With explanation on constants and vowels done, Ms. Linsen went on to the next lesson. **"And now we're going to practice to pronouncing some simple words from the worksheets. One of the volunteers will now pass them out to you before we begin. And if you need to help to pronounce the words, don't be afraid to ask for the volunteers."** The teacher looked to Minerva and told her, **"Minerva, if you will."** The blonde readily did her job as she took up the stack of worksheets and passed one to each student. Once she was out of papers to give, Minerva stood at the side of the room she was closest to and listened to what the teacher said next. Ms. Linsen told the class,** "Now for a few minutes, you are going to look at the words and try to pronounce them to yourselves. Practice each word as often as you like until you feel like you can get them. Now begin!"**

The dragons started to practices the ten words printed on the worksheets. A purple dragon looked to Drake and telepathically asked him, _'Excuse me, sir. I need your help with how to say this word.' _Drake aided the dragon who had called to him. After helping him how to say it, the brown dragon smiled at the purple when he got the word right. The purple dragon said his thanks to him.

As the class continued to pronounce the words they were practicing, a sweetling hatchling raised his hand and asked, **"Excuse me! How do you say that word?"**

Minerva saw and heard him. Happy to help out the young dragon, she made her way over to his desk. With a sweet smile on her face, she asked, **"Which word, do you want me to help you say?"**

The hatchling pointed to the word, 'beet', and said, **"This one! I said it as b-e-t, but my mom says that it might not be the right way to say it."** Minerva looked at the word before she explained to him how to say it. After he was taught the correct way to say it, the sweetling nodded gratefully and said, **"Thanks!"**

The woman replied, **"You're welcome."**

After a while of word practice, Ms. Linsen told the students,** "Alright class, let's go over what we practiced." **Then she told them how the words were actually pronounced and got the class to say them together. After they were done, the teacher smiled and said,** "Good job! Now I have some more words for you to practice. Volunteers, please pass out the next worksheets." **Minerva took up another small stack and passed each worksheet to the dragons. Then the class began to practice the words before the teacher would go over it with them.

* * *

Atlas and the others were still flying through the sky to get to Trident Mountain. Garin turned to Violet and asked, **"So, what was it like being a dragon?"**

The girl looked at him puzzled and said, **"I never was a dragon, just a normal teenage girl. Well until a certain night happened, that was when it all changed."** Then she turned away and continued, **"And I'd rather not talk about it."**  
**  
"Alright,"** Garin responded. **"I won't push you to share your experience."** The halfling did a sideways roll away from Axle and did some flips and spins in the air, laughing as he did so. Despite his distraction, he was able to keep with the speed of the group as they made their way to Trident Mountain. After Garin had his fun, he flew up to Atlas and sat down on her head. **"So,"** he said looking down into the eyes of the large magi dragoness. **"What's the plan when we get there?"**

Not minding the boy on her head, Atlas answered, **"We're going to put a triangle-looking thing into a stone. But we're also going to watch out for any dirty tricks Dracul and the other lords have for us once we get there."** The magi's eyes glared with distrusting suspicion as she continued, **"I don't trust these scums to let us do one simple task and then get off the mountain with no trouble at all. They must have a trap over there, I know they do."** Whatever was waiting for at the mountain, Atlas going to be well prepared for it. If the bad guys were going to trap them in some container, then she would just teleport everyone out. If they used that seal spell, then Atlas needed to reverse that spell and then warp her group out. If it came to a fight, then she'll gladly tear any enemy in the way.

Axle turned his eye to Atlas and said, **"Nothing is ever that simple, Atlas. There is a reason why Dracul wants me to get there before nightfall, I just do not know. As for the traps, do not be surprised if it a pit mixed with a seal, something I'm full aware of that Spinx more likely will do, since he has just about every magic type in his undead minions."**

Now the magi felt more wary of the necromancer and said, **"Then that means we got to put our guards up even more. Who knows what kind of crazy ass spells his zombies will pull out of their asses. That crafty, murdering son-of-a-bitch!"**

Then the white dragon spoke, **"You never know the real Spinx, before he became this monster he is now. Back then, he was a priest of dark magic, but was using that magic for good. He used the undead to get people to safety a few times when a village to the east was being raided by bandits. There was no law enforcement there at that small village and no help was coming either. Spinx however was coming to that town. Story be told, Spinx used an undead dragon to dowse all the fires out and then used the undead swarm of little birds and wolves to drive back the bandits, without injuring the people at all. It was only month after that, when rumors of a priest with dark magic started to attack villages using undead servants. That's when the Incarus family found out and followed up on the clues."** He took a breath and adjusted his wings to keep a steady glide. Atlas raised an eye out of curiosity, wondering of how Spinx went from a benevolent man who helped people to the corrupted person he was today. Axle continued, **"Every small village, even a large town that was a day flight away, was destroyed or on fire. Soon the trail went cold and the rumors of a priest vanished from ears. Well until an island called Clamartion, which I would say is just about smack dab in the center between Rudvich and Solomos, was attacked. I was sent there with another dragon, a drake, to investigate the island. What we found was the Spinx you see now, burning a lake side town to ground."** He stopped at that point for a few seconds.

Ohimia, who was behind the other dragons, asked, **"How did he turn evil?"**

Axle answered, **"This village though was known for its tradition of soul bond of a dragon to a human, allowing both to become one mind and soul. Well there was this one man with silver hair and with him was a tiny midnight pygmy. The battle was short as Spinx cast him into the water and gravely wounded the pygmy. Me and my partner tried to stop Spinx and save as many lives as we could, but ultimately, the outcome was not what we expected. The undead had outnumbered us with a ratio of somewhere around 1000 to 1 and more was just gathering. Spinx was somehow wielding the power of a demon at his finger tips and he was not done there. He quickly found out what we were doing there and had an open slaughter feast with the people that were still alive, and then soon turned his attention back to us. We had no choice but to run as fast as we could. We could not take to the air for there was more dragons in the air than we could take on alone, and the streets where not safe either, because of the undead on the ground. Spinx have put us in a hard spot to get out of."** Atlas noticed the tear running down the dragon's cheek and thought that something bad had happened to his partner. **"We had no choice but to try and power our way through the streets and make it to the far side of the island for us to teleport back to home. But Spinx pulled out his crossbow you, Atlas, have seen; and fired a bolt right into my partner's leg and soon getting me in my side. Even in pain, me and my partner had to still push, soon making it a safe distance from the undead and removed the bolts from our bodies or so we thought. The place we ran into for hiding was in a cave and we soon found out why Spinx did not chase us into that cave. The cave was full of night lurker dragons and we have not only disturbed their slumber when we found out, but brought them a four course meal as well to their front door. We soon had a choice, try fighting though the night lurkers or head back the way we came. We choose the way we came and ran for it, back into another hostile area. We were lucky to escape from the cave with our lives, but not without some wounds on top of what we already have."** He seemed to choke on his words for a bit. Atlas wondered why he didn't try to heal their wounds first. Maybe they didn't have time as they were probably constantly chased or something. Then the dragon lord went back to the story, **"The undead chased us to a woody area, where they soon ambushed us and injured us even further. Once the fight was done, my partner had fallen to the ground bleeding out. I had little energy left and only enough to heal only one of us. I went to heal her, but she said to keep it. She knew she was not going got make it, because she was much slower than I was. I told her, screamed at her that I was not going to leave her there, but she said that I had no choice. And she was right, I had no choice, because I was not given one. The spell that was given to us to teleport back home, she used the spell to teleport me back before I even had a chance to save her."** He shook his head in sorrow.

Everyone felt pity and sadness for his loss. Ohimia let out a soft gasp, while Garin murmured, **"Bummer..."**

The magi knew all too well the death of someone close to a dragon and muttered the word, **"Damn..."**

Once the story of Spinx was over, Axle told, **"Everyone land."**

Then the dragonesses followed him below the trees and landed on the moss-covered ground. Atlas asked her friend, **"So, what are we stopping for this time?"**

Axle landed in front of the magi and looked down to the ground. Violet got off his back and looked up at him with a confused and worried look on her face like he had a troubling problem on his mind. The dragon lord asked the magi, **"Atlas... I know you want to come with me, but can you please stay here until I get back?" **His words were not only a request, but also felt like a command as well at the same time.

**"What?"** asked the magi as the request sounded crazy. **"Don't be ridiculous, Axle. You know Spinx is over there with all his zombies and shit. If he hurts you again, who's going to be there to warp you and everybody else out?"** She hated having to see the dragon get wounded again. She cared too much to let him die at the hands of anyone, even a wicked human. If that happened, then Atlas would never be able to forgive herself for this.

**"There are a few things in this world that needs to be done by myself," **the white said as he sighed a bit. He came up closer to Atlas with his eyes soft, but filled with regret. **"Forgive me,"** he said. Before Atlas could react, he swiped quickly and powerfully at the magi's head, knocking her to the ground. The dragoness's vision started to become dim as the last sounds she heard from the others were Ohimia's shocked cry of her name and Garin making a shocked yell. Atlas blacked out and she became unable to process any thoughts in response to the attack on her or any events that happened in her unconsciousness.

* * *

Aeolus had used Eitri's stone to teleport himself to the river where he killed a few flamingos and ate them. As he was finishing up his lunch, one of the nocturnal horde members at Doubloon's village, contacted him, _'Aeolus, this is Uvanis. I got some bad news to tell you.'_

The disaster dragon immediately stopped chewing the last prey. He lifted his head up away from the body in a slow pace that reflected how serious he felt this news would be. He asked, _'What is it?'_

Uvanis told him, _'The village we were in has just got attacked by really agile and skilled humans. They were being led by Arch and possibly Dracul as well. They've taken away Eitri and Atlas's nieces, and killed Peado, Zylanon and Tine.'_

Aeolus didn't take the news well at all. In fact, he was disappointed with how late the dark leaf pygmy had told him about the event. He spoke, _'What? Why didn't you contact me earlier? I would have brought the horde out to help you!'_ The pygmy had better come up with an excuse to explain his and Eitri's incompetence.

He did, _'I was about to, but then Arch had one of our guards hostage. He told us to stop fighting or else he would have him killed. He even said we were no match for his men, which is true because they killed some of us and dodged every attack we threw at them. None of them died or got hurt. And by the way, they were only few in numbers. Eitri told us to stop fighting, so that the rest of us and the guard wouldn't die.' _

The horde leader went quiet, feeling the grim story hitting him like a ton of bricks. If even a whole village of dragons couldn't take out a small number of humans and two dragons, then what hope would the horde be against Dracul's army at this point? He said in a calmer tone, _'So that's why. Even if the horde had come, I don't think we would have been able to save this village.'_ That was why the Vulture Horde needed training and knowledge from the dragons of Shadow Wind, so that they would be able to hold their own against Dracul and his soldiers more easily. _'Tell me, Uvanis. Has Atlas heard what happened to her nieces, yet?'_

The pygmy answered, _'No sir. I haven't told her yet.'_

_'Well she needs to know, so that we can plan out a rescue. In the meantime, I will talk to Eitri and have him tell me when to send some spies over.'_

_'Spies?' _Uvanis asked.

Aeolus answered, _'Yes, so that we can gain some intel on the enemy's strengths and weaknesses.'_ The need for spies was now more necessary than ever, now with knowing the enemy can dodge many attacks easily. The horde should hold a meeting soon and discuss everything they've learned from their sparring sessions and the attack on the village. That way, they can learn some good techniques and improve on them. This will be useful not only against Dracul, but also the horde's future enemies as well, including Rina, Raven and the Aquarians.

Before the leader could form a telepathic bond with the night magi, he heard Uvanis's cry for help, _'Aeolus, help! Dracul broke the deal! He's killing us one by one. We need some magis to teleport us out of here!' _Aeolus gritted his teeth in stress. Of all the rotten luck to try and get things done, the dastard had to go and break the truce this soon. Aeolus considered whether to rescue the village or not. He saw the pros and the cons of both decisions. If he sent Yopple and the magi mates to rescue them, then Dracul would just teleport himself and his soldiers over to the horde and possibly decimate everyone there. The horde may have more combat experience and training than the villagers did and might fare well than they would, but the training was recent and won't be enough to stop them. But if he abandoned the village, then a survivor who knows his home had been abandoned by the ones who could have save them would speak ill of the horde to others and tarnish the Vulture Horde's image, thus ruining any chances of future recruitment. Not only that, he would also lose Uvanis and some others, who would share with the horde more on the enemies' fighting capabilities. Well, there was Eitri and the captured who would be alive to tell the story. But the more witnesses, the better as their differing point-of-views would off a variety of insight. Aeolus's train of thoughts were interrupted by the pygmy's desperate yell, _'Aeolus?!'_

The horde leader decided to be honest with him, _'Uvanis, you do know that Dracul and Arch can teleport, right? If we warp the whole village over to us, then they will follow us and destroy us all there. I can't afford to lose any of my horde's lives just yet.'_

_'But Aeolus, you've gotten the horde to spare with each other, so that they would know how to fight other dragons. We, nocturnal members, didn't get the same amount of training as you day dragons did and that's why we lost.'_

_'And a day and a half of training is still not enough. If Dracul decides to come here, we may not have enough time to discuss how strategy.'_

_'You guys destroyed a few human settlements without deaths and even took down that group of dragon slayers.'_

The leader reasoned, _'Only, because we had the element of surprise at our side.'_ With Dracul's teleportation ability, the horde will have no idea where the enemy will appear at. Then Aeolus was reminded of the magis' ability to teleport. This power was an element of surprise. They would go in without the enemy knowing and then kill them. That plan sounds like a good idea. The leader told the pygmy the good news, _'You know what, Uvanis? I think we might be able to save the village.'_

Uvanis sounded a bit relieved, _'Really? That's great, Aeolus! I knew I could count on you.'_

Of course for the assault to succeed, Aeolus would need the dark leaf's help, too. He told him, _'I will send Yopple and a couple of spring dragons to capture Dracul, but I need you to watch how he fights, so that I can give them the go to get in at the right time.'_

_'Okay, I'll keep an eye on him. But please hurry,'_ begged Uvanis.

Aeolus formed a telepathic bond with Yopple, the magis and a fourth dragon to tell them, _'Yopple, Jarilo, Evony, Kekul, we have an emergency. Dracul has just attacked the village, where our nocturnal soldiers are. I need you four to teleport to me immediately so that we can plan our attack.'  
_  
Within a few seconds, the summoned four teleported to their leader's location. The male spring asked, **"We're here. What's the plan, Aeolus?"  
**  
Aeolus gave them a brief on the mission, **"What Kekul going to do is place a tracking spell on Dracul and then teleport the three of you over to him."**

Suddenly, Juna's words spoke into his mind in a slightly teasing tone, _'Hey Aeolus, found my brother now and now we are both ready to train your hoard for a bit. And how is everything on your end of the stick with Akil?'_

She apparently knew that the general was going to dislike him after that talk she told her earlier. Aeolus figured that the silver must have told her about the horde's bloody history. The leader thought that the silver would get amused with the truth, but he was not to give her the pleasure of his failure. He answered, _'We're off to a rough start, but it's not too much of a problem I care about, mind you. Anyway, I'll go let the others know about this shortly.'_

The dragon lord asked kindheartedly, but with a bit of amusement tone mixed in it, _'You got beat I take it then. Well she was train by my brother, so what could you expect? But her attitude came from her real parents, whoever they are. So have fun with that. Now have you talk to Atlas or Axle recently on their progress to the mountain, because Dracul has something plan for them; I just know it.'  
_  
_'Fine,'_ Aeolus just replied. He wanted to tell her that Akil never beat him and that she just gave up. But he'd rather keep the conversation short, so that he can finish the plan and send the team away. He also noticed the unusually "nice" tone in her voice and suspected that Juna was enjoying seeing someone else, besides her, giving him the cold shoulder.

Putting his attention back onto the three in front of him, Aeolus resumed from where he left off, **"So anyway, before I tell you what to do next, I'm going to ask Uvanis what he learned from Dracul."** He formed a telepathic bond with the dark leaf and asked, _'Uvanis, I got the team. Tell me what Dracul can do now.'_  
_  
The pygmy reported, 'Okay, let's see... He can transform himself into a human and take advantage of his small size to get around those bigger than him. I mean he was pretty agile; that was how he managed to dodge all our attacks.'_ The horde leader was reminded of his spar from today and found the comparison between Dracul's human form and Firefry to be almost similar. The crimson flare's size and fast speed had made him difficult to land a claw or bite at him. Aeolus had been forced to use his breath attack and wind powers instead for an easier time against the pygmy. Uvanis continued, _'Dracul can also use dark magic. He burned everyone with black flames and made them come out from cracks below the ground. I think that's all I know of him.'_

Aeolus replied, _'Thank you, Uvanis. Help will be there shortly.'_ With the telepathy over, the leader went back to planning a strategy with the team, **"So as soon as Kekul teleports the team over to the Dracul, you spring dragons must breathe out your tranquilizing pollen breath to put him to sleep immediately. Do not wait too much or you might miss your chance. Once Dracul is knocked out, capture him and bring him to the lake we left. I and a few others will interrogate some information out of him and then hold a trial for him."** He looked to the magma magi and told him, **"Kekul, place the tracking spell on Dracul now."** Kekul did as he was told and used his tracking spell to locate the dragon lord. The horde leader continued to tell the team,** "And one last thing. If you find yourselves losing against him, then teleport and save yourselves. But do not come back to us. Dracul and Arch seem to have the ability to track us down and I do not want their army to fight us yet until we're stronger and bigger in numbers. Understood?"**

The spring dragons replied, **"Yes, Aeolus!"**

With a brief nod, Aeolus said, **"Good, you may go now."** The springs inhaled to bring up pollen breaths before they closed their mouths to hold them in until after teleportation. Kekul walked a distance away from the team and then teleported them to Dracul.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Yeah, I know Kathia's a hypocrite for scolding Azera when she went against her parents' wishes, but I don't care. For the bright pink and her dragonet friend, they are cameos of Shiba and Kakoli at the literacy class. I love making the latter a prankster. While the Ohimia and Garin's interaction didn't happen much in Atlas's part, I felt to write them into the story, so that it looks like they're still part of the team. Anyway, I wonder how the horde vs Dracul battle will go in the RP, I'm kinda nervous.

Jarilo, Evony, Peado and Tine (c) me  
Shiba and Kakoli (c) Shibathedragon


	48. Battle on Trident Mountain

**Chapter 47: Battle on Trident Mountain**

With his team sent, Aeolus now had to ask Atlas and Axle about their progress to Trident Mountain. Not only that, but he also needed to tell them the bad news as well. He formed a telepathic bond with the magi and asked, _'Atlas, can you hear me?'_ He waited a bit for the dragoness's response, but nothing came from her. The disaster tried again, _'Atlas, I need to talk you. It's important. Please respond.'_ When he received silence again, Aeolus started to get a bit impatient and tried again one last time in a louder voice._ 'ATLAS!'_ he shouted.

* * *

The hunter's ghost had Kathia closer to Sundown since they started. The girl noticed something dark in the sky and saw dark gray clouds in the sky, close to where Sundown would be. Thunder roared into those clouds, it looked like there was going to be a thunderstorm. Kathia knew that she had left one important thing behind for this occasion and figuratively beat herself up for it,_ 'Oh, why didn't I bring my raincoat. Now I'm going to get wet by the time I get to Sundown.'_ She felt stupid for a bit until she remembered that she can do something else to prevent that. She thought, _'Oh wait, I can use a bubble barrier to shield myself. I'm going to be fine after all.'_

* * *

Atlas's mind was in the black void of nothingness, unable to process anything going on in the real world. No sound, touch or smell was going to wake this dragoness up. Well, until now. The magi heard a familiar masculine voice, but wasn't able to make out the words being spoken. It went on twice before shouting her name. The magi could now recognize the voice more clearly and registered it as Aeolus. _'H-huh? What is going on?'_ she asked.

Aeolus sounded fine now as he said,_ 'Good to know that you're paying attention now.'_ Then his tone took a turn in seriousness, _'Listen up, Atlas. We have a problem on our claws and it concerns you and your nieces.'_

The magi started to feel like she was in a bad dream when she heard that something terrible must have happened. She asked worriedly,_ 'Problem, what problem?'_

Her friend told her, _'Your nieces have been kidnapped by Dracul and Arch.'_ Atlas suddenly felt as if the gates of Hell had opened itself up. Its loud roar booming across the land of tranquility, turning every lovely plant into dried up withered forms of decay. Out from the angry inferno walked a demonic decomposing corpse of Flarina. Her eyeless sockets glared furiously as she berated her sister for failing to protect her nieces. The nightmare was too much for the magi's consciousness that her stress levels started to rise until she snapped. With a waking jolt that forced her eyes open, Atlas shouted, **"Nooooo!"** To her surprise and confusion, she found herself back in the woods before she had fallen to Axle's knock-out strike. The magi gasped for air as she started to recover from her shock. She turned her head to see Garin and Ohimia looking as if they were getting ready to fight something, but what? She asked, **"Guys, what's going on?"**

Garin replied in a shaky voice, **"A number of creatures began surrounding our camp, about ten as far as I could tell. Violet tried to wake you up and failed. Seeing as there was no way the two of us could fend off the foes, she unlocked her collar using the key Axle somehow gave her and fled into the forest, drawing the monsters away from us."** Atlas translated that as to the monsters being Violets friends and that she led them away so that she and the monsters could have a secret meeting. Those fiends were probably plotting something malicious against them. The halfling shook in silence for a bit, a tear forming in the corner of his eye. Even Ohimia was crying, but more so than her companion. **"She barely even knew us... And yet she sacrificed herself in order to save us... She didn't even say goodbye..."** The tears dripped down their faces and made no noticeable noises as they fell to the ground, the noises being absorbed by the roaring of looming thunder from the storm. Garin wiped his face and turned towards Atlas. Looking up into the large magi dragoness's eyes, he told her, **"She told me that when you woke up, I was to tell you that we need to go after Axle, and... the colors of your daughter's body; green and orange tinted scales with red and blue eyes..."**

Of all her children that Atlas seen in life, none of them looked like that. But for the ones that had been in their eggs before getting sold off and never known, the description could belong to any of them. Which brings Atlas to the question: how did Violet know what her daughter looked like? The magi suspected that Violet must be fabricating it up, just to distract Garin and Ohimia even more. Atlas put on a stern facial expression and told her, **"You two can stop crying now."** Then she got up onto her feet and said, **"Guys, we can worry about Axle later. I want to know what that vampire is up to. How did she know what my daughter looked like, when I never seen her before."**

Garin wiped his eyes once more to remove the last of the straggling tears and looked back up at the magi. **"Funny,"** Garin said, his voice no longer wavering. **"I was just about to suggest that I go after her while you go after Axle while I make sure Violet is safe... or at least not conspiring against us... How does that sound?"**

Atlas found the plan to be efficient; they would be able to get both things done this way. **"Like a good plan,"** she replied. **"I'll teleport over to Axle right now. Let me know if you need help or anything, alright?"** Then she thought of Axle and used her tracking spell to reveal to her where he's at. Immediately as she done that, she got an image of Axle fighting Spinx who was on a drake. The white dragon appeared to be wounded, while the necromancer himself appeared to be unharmed. Desiring to even up the fight, the dragoness thought, _'Hang on, Axle. I'm coming.' _

Before she could teleport over to him, she heard Aeolus ask, _'Atlas, are you still there?'_

The magi replied, _'I am. I'll go get my nieces later. I just need to help out a friend first; he's in danger. See if you can get your horde to save Danielle and Kylie.'_ She felt bad having to put her family second to someone else, but she needed to save someone else she knew who was in immediate danger.

* * *

Aeolus cut off his telepathic bond with Atlas and thought,_ 'I'm already on it.' _If the deployed dragons successfully defeated Dracul, then he'll interrogate the lord as to where they are. For now, the leader finished up the last of his flamingo. Bam and Akil got to the river and saw the flamingos his cousin told him about. Speaking to the messenger, the navy blue said, **"Look, there they are!"** Then he noticed his cousin nearby and continued,** "And there's Aeolus!"** He announced to his cousin, **"Hey Aeolus, we're here!"**

After he was done with his flamingo, the horde leader looked at his cousin and said, **"I see. Well eat fast, because we're about to start getting trained by Juna and Mekarth soon."**

The navy blue smiled and said, **"Alright! I can't wait to see how they're gonna train us."**

Just then, Aeolus heard Jarilo speaking to him, '_Aeolus, we defeated Dracul. We're going over to the lake now.'_

The leader replied to the whole team,_ 'Good work, you three. I'll let Juna and Mekarth know about this. Take Dracul to the lake and bring the village chief, Doubloon, with you. His home was affected by Dracul, too. It's only fair that he should be there to charge the culprit as well. I'll show Yopple what he looks like.'_

_'Understood,' _the spring dragoness replied.

After Aeolus gave Yopple the mental image of what chief Doubloon looks like, he heard another telepathic message from Jarilo, only this time it was one he didn't want to hear. _'Aeolus, bad news! We just found Uvanis and he's dead. I think Dracul must have killed him.'_

_'What?!' _the leader said in a surprised manner of unhappiness. There went all the intel he was hoping for, all of it gone down the rabbit hole. Aeolus sighed, _'I was hoping he would survive so that we can get the upper hand on our enemy, but now we're back to step one with him. I guess we may have to try again during interrogation.'_ Aeolus figured that Dracul wouldn't give away his secrets so easily, but it still wouldn't hurt to try. After cutting off telepathic bone with the team, he went on to tell Juna the good news._ 'Juna, it looks like we'll have to hold off of training for a while. My soldiers have just captured Dracul. He was seen attacking the village where Danielle and Kylie were staying at. The village's chief and I are going to interrogate him at the lake we were at yesterday and then we're judge him for all his crimes. Bring a few cassares with you, so that he doesn't use any magic during all this.'_

The silver lord was in disbelief as she said,_ 'How...but...he... Impossible.'_

Aeolus replied, _'I understand it must be surprising for you, but he went down easier than I thought.'_

Then Juna told him, '_Aeolus, pin him down now, so that he does not magic to wreck havoc on us all when we get there.'_

The horde leader was already ahead of her as his cassare soldier should be at the lake with Dracul. But he still said, '_Understood.' _Then he contacted Enamora to teleport the dragon lords to the lake and Kekul to warp some cassares there as well to further prevent Dracul from using magic. Turning to Bam and Akil, he said, **"Akil, I got some news that will surprise you. We just captured Dracul."**

The navy blue asked astonished, **"What? Really? When? How?" **

The horde leader answered, **"By sending a team of spring dragons to put him to sleep and Yopple to suppress his magic."**

In Akil's eyes, there was hatred towards that name. It seemed to struck a nerve with her. **"Take me to where ever he is at, Aeolus, and make sure Juna and Mekarth are coming,"** she said, trying to sound calm, but it was evident that she was pissed.

Aeolus replied, **"I already got it covered."** Taking up Eitri's stone, he used it to teleport the three dragons over to the lake where Yopple, Doubloon, Dracul and the spring dragons will be.

* * *

The magi teleported over to Trident Mountain and appeared just on the cliff before Axle and Spinx, who were in close range of each other. Glaring at the necromancer, she roared, **"Spinx, you are a dead man!"** She cast a light laser at him and the drake, who both started to dodge the spell. Spinx jumped off the drake's back and propelled himself off Axle's back, while the drake went under the white dragon. Axle tried to evade as well, did not quite make it out of range of the spell and was hit by the laser spell, gracing his right eye and then going down his side. Atlas stomped her foot in self-blame for the collateral damage that hurt the dragon and cursed, **"Damn it!"**

Spinx summoned a great number of his undead zombies in the form of dragons, drakes, birds, wolves, snakes, etc. before the young dragon lord. **"Kill them both,"** the necromancer said as all the undead followed his order.

Five undead dragons went for Axle, who looked ready for the onslaught. But before any of the five could get to him, one of them suddenly got shot from a distance by an arrow and was then suddenly combusted in blue flames. A silver-haired man with a scar across his cheek and right emerald gray eye walked out of the woods with a green-tinted sword drawn as he said, **"He is my bounty, Spinx, and I intent to bring him back alive."** He notched another arrow and pulled the bow string back, aimed carefully and released it from it tension. Spinx threw up his bone wall to block the arrow, but the silverette infused it with fire and light the wall ablaze. The hunter threw his bow to the ground and drew his sword, before charging head first into the necromancer.

The four undead dragons managed to get a clean hit on Axle, knocking him from his daze. As the dragons started to circle him, the white closed his eyes and begun to slow down his breathing. Pretty soon, his eyes slowly opened to the dragons coming into attack him. He stepped to the left and spun on his paw in a right rotation, knocking all the dragons away from him and the closest dragon he dispatched quickly. He jumped on the dragon's back and bit hard in the neck to remove the head from the body. Blood covered his body as he dropped the head to the ground and worked on one by one of each dragon that was fighting him.

Atlas saw the three undead dragons come for her, one of them was a shiny blue drake and the other two were the former lords, Eve and Tork. She put on a fire aura over herself to burn any zombie minion that dares to touch her. She flew towards the dragons and cast fireballs at them. The drake took the lead and cast a wind aura around her and flew right at the magi, almost like it was insane, until it flew right by and absorbed the aura like a sponge. Its bright blue scales became a dark crimson color as it started to circle around. Atlas growled at the drake before she looked to the two lords, who started by one casting high power water spells at her, while the other went to chain her down. The magi flew up over the water spell, but the other lord managed to chain her down to the ground. This didn't stop the magi though as she scoffed it off, **"Hah, that's nothing!"** She teleported herself out of the chains and flew after the drake. Taking it out first was top priority on her mind, considering it was probably weak compared to the lords. The lords did not stay for the fight as they circled back around to protect Spinx from the swordsman's relentless assault that he was throwing at the necromancer. Their blades clashed, sending small sparks into the air, as Spinx's blade seems to be falling apart.

Atlas cast a powerful light beam at the drake, who evaded it. The drake did a full 180 on the magi and came right at her. It was unfortunate that the dragoness didn't get hit that she wanted, but she can always try again. Atlas was prepared to shoot light lasers at the drake, but then the drake was intercepted by Axle. The smell of burning flesh filled the air as both the white and the drake went to the ground. Axle rolled away from the drake. His entire underbody was scorched by what seemed to be fire, yet the drake never used fire at all. He was probably burnt from the other zombies he fought. The white was already breathing heavily beforehand, and from the way he looked, he was no longer in the condition to fight anymore. The drake seemed to stagger a bit before it stood up and looked at Axle with its eyes filled with anger as the ground around it started to dry up and wither away. She let out a deep roar as the air, even with the rain, became dry, almost like a heat wave was just happening. The drake spoke to Axle in a rage-filled tone that caught him off guard, **"I will make you pay for abandoning my sister."** The fired-up drake hit him like a truck and sent the white dragon flying back some feet from where he stood. The sound of bones breaking in Axle's chest was heard and there was blood coming from his mouth. The drake, in a split of an eye, had changed color again to a pale white. Than the wind started to circle the now pale white drake fiercely, being almost as sharp as any sword on the planet. Axle started to struggle to even breathe from the blow he just took and coughed up a large amount of blood. The way he looked now, the white dragon could succumb to his wounds and maybe worse.

Atlas about to go and stop the drake, when she heard Garin's sad telepathic stutter, _'She... She's dead... They killed her... Her own people...' _It sounded like Violet had really betrayed the vampires, if they wanted to kill her. The magi's suspicion about the girl had been wrong all along. However, there was no time to dwell on these thoughts right now as Atlas needs to save Axle right now. She can wait until after the battle to tell him the bad news.

The dragoness flew down towards the attacking drake like an angry bird going to peck the eyes out of a nest invader. But then Axle stopped her with a hesitating telepathic message to her, _'Atlas, go after the lords. I... I will be fine here. You need to free the lords and lay their bodies to rest.' _He changed into his human form and grabbed his ruby red dagger from his back. He wiped away the blood from his mouth and got ready for the drake's attack, but it never came. Instead, she started to circle around Axle, almost like a cat does when it wants attention.

The magi was uneasy with following the white's decision and for good reason, too. She told him, _'What? I can't just leave you here like that. You're badly hurt for crying out loud! What if that drake kills you? Then what? That bastard Spinx will now finally have your heart.'  
_  
Axle turn his attention towards Atlas for a brief second and replied, _'Please Atlas, I don't think this drake want to straight up kill me. If you have not noticed, she is alive, not dead.'_ He started to slowly back away from the drake that was circling him. She seemed to have noticed the slight movement he was doing and was trailing after him cautiously.

Atlas wasn't too confident with Axle's reply. After all, the drake did say that she was going to make him pay. The magi knew that the drake was going to get violent with him. But Axle wanted her to put her faith in him that he'll get out of this alive. Atlas decided to respect his whim for now and said, _'Okay, fine. But don't you dare die on me. We're all getting out of this alive, you hear me?' _Then she flew over to Spinx and the undead lords with magic energy building up for an attack spell. At first, she thought about killing Spinx with her spell, but she decided against it as that would have put the swordsman he was fighting at risk if she missed.

Spinx and the other man's swords clashed once more, this time both being chipped by their force as the swordsman partly asked and demanded, **"Spinx, what do you know about my past?!"**

Spinx simply pushed him back, making the swordsman stumble a bit. The necromancer lunged at the mercenary with his sword pointed to his head, but the swordsman barely managed to deflect it with his sword as sparks danced off the blade. Spinx smirked, **"Oh, so you want to know who you were back then, Azera. Then beat me and you will find out."** He rammed his shoulder into Azera's chest and, sending the man hard to the ground and gasping for air. The necromancer pointed his sword downwards and stabbed down at Azera's chest, but the mercenary rolled out of the way, just again barely missing as his shirt got slides in the back. Azera sent a large area around him up into flames, forcing Spinx to shield himself with his bone magic.

With the undead lords close enough for the hit, Atlas cast a light beam at Tork, knowing that if she took him out first, then she won't have to deal with his seal spell. Upon contact, the beam destroyed the main section of his body. **"Yes!"** Atlas grinned triumphantly, having destroyed Tork. She had been expecting a long battle with him the moment she made her attack, but she got him in one shot, which made the supposedly-tough undead lord surprisingly easy. Spinx recalled the undead lord back from which he came and Tork returned back into the earth in a very bad condition. The necromancer had Eve turn right then and there and head straight for Atlas as he took the blood that was running down his arm. He started to drew three small circles in the ground with his blood in a triangle pattern and sat in the middle of it and started to chant. Eve turned around and came straight at the magi as a ball of water, gathered from the rain, started to form around herself. The ball grew in size extremely fast, from a small rain drop, to a large ball of water. The undead dragoness shot a huge water ball of water at Atlas. The ball hit the magi and engulfed her inside it as she fell from the air in shock. Water started filling her nostrils, mouth and ears as well as stung her eyes. The sense of drowning was a painfully strange feeling and Atlas wanted to get out of the ball. She tried to swim out of the spherical pool, but she was still in the same place no matter what. Since struggling failed, the magi did one of the things she did best. She teleported herself out of the ball and dropped down on the ground. Atlas coughed out the water she had inhaled and blinked repeatedly, trying to recover from her stung eyes. As soon as she spat out the last gush, the same water ball hit the dragoness again and recaptured her. The ball flew fast into a rocky wall, where it crashed along with Atlas, who felt the slam against her back. Her spine ached from the blow as she fell back onto the ground. Atlas glared up at Eve, who was spinning around in the air. The magi wanted retribution against her for that attack. She teleported behind the zombie and cast light lasers at her.

The undead lord was knocked out of the air by the spells, leaving a large hole in her, but she never crashed the ground as the dragoness slowed her decent by a large amount with the water that have gathered around her. She stood on the ground and looked up at Atlas. Eve seemed to be about to release another spell at the magi. Atlas, too, was also prepared to cast another spell. But then Eve suddenly stopped. Spinx started to return the dragoness lord back from which she came from as now three large red circles with draconic writing in them were on the ground now. The necromancer was just smiling devilishly. Atlas read what each of the circles said. The one on the right read, _'Thee who burns earth, water and air itself, I summon thee to my side in my time of triumph. Crisp my enemies before thee self and leave thee earth scorch from your waken.'_

The one on the left said, _'Thee who control the sky itself, rise your light pulse and slay thee enemy. Use your pulse from the heavens and smite thee foe.'_

Lastly, the middle one read, _'Thee demon that controls space and time thee self. I revive thee to follow my command and banish my enemy to thee hell and destroy their soul as thee see fit.'_

Spinx's right arm was dripping blood as he said the last command word needed for his summons, and it was in a language that Atlas couldn't understand. Soon, all three circles glowed bright colors. The right one glowed a bright red, the left a bright gold, and the center one a bright purple. Spinx laughed over the rain and yelled at the magi, **"Meet the legendary beasts of dragons' history: Bracer, Crea and Bothmas. They will be your death, dear. This is what you get for going against me, dragon. Just like this meat sack I now live in."** He laughed as the rain now became thick as it came down much harder. The first circle that cracked the earth was the right one as a large red dragon claw came from the ground and dug into the soil, leaving large gashes in the earth. Fire seemed to pour from that circle. The left one was now cracked, but not from the ground, but from the clouds above as a glowing gold tear drop came from the air. The third one seemed to rip open the air around; making a black rip in its wake as a black ooze-like thing came seeping from the rip. The first of these dragons to appear was the gold tear drop as it turned into a golden wyvern. Lighting circled around her like an aura. The second was the large red dragon claw as an extremely large dragon shattered the earth. Rocks and dirt were sent into the air. Steam came from the dragon's back as flames danced over his scales. The last was a very deep dark purple drake with eyes as black as the night sky.

Atlas was surprised to see that Spinx had gotten a hold of these famous figures from the past. Looking at these beings, the magi knew the grim situation she was in and murmured, **"Oh hell no!"** The red dragon known as Bracer was much larger than she imagined from the tales she heard. He was practically a giant and his size looked like it would intimidate anyone smaller than him. Atlas never fought dragons of this size before, but she knew that he was going to be much physically stronger because of his mass. Bothmas the drake was also going to be a big problem as he was known to make his enemies more aggressive and then use his soul purity spell to annihilate anyone who was aggressive. Atlas, being that type of dragon, needed to be really careful around the drake or she will be dead.

Spinx picked up his sword and pointed it at Atlas. **"Kill her,"** he said. The first one to react to it was Bothmas as he slashed at the air, sending a large dark claw at her, leaving behind it what seemed to be a rip in the air and a void in its wake with purple lighting coming from it. Atlas managed to dodge the claw, but the purple lightning struck her. The magi let out a pained roar before she was hit by the fast, huge fireball spewed by Bracer and knocked down to the ground, where she hit her underside and chin hard. Then the rain suddenly started to get harder, making the raindrop start to feel like a waterfall was pouring down on Atlas. Then a lightning bolt struck the ground in front of her. The magi turned her head away for a bit as if she was trying to avoid getting hurt. Then more lightning bolts struck around her as it they were trying to keep her trapped in its electric circle. Atlas didn't want to wait and stick around for something bad to follow up, so she teleported away from the lightning. She decided to stick to fighting on ground as flying in this kind of weather was tough on her wings. The dragoness looked around for Bothmas and cast some light lasers at him. As the lasers head towards the drake, a barrier of a sideways pyramid blocks the lasers, splitting them into four beams as two hit the ground and the others were redirected to the air. Bracer cloaked himself in fire and ran head first at Atlas. The magi was tackled by him and knocked over onto the ground. The fire around him had heated up the armor, making the magi feel the hot touch on her scales. But thankfully the suit had prevented her from getting severe burns. Atlas retaliated by casting more light lasers at him. Bracer took the full forces of the spells, but seemed to not really care that they hit him at all. All they did was just bounce off his flames. He lunged forward and went to slash at her. Atlas's eyes went wide, anticipating that she was going to get slashed by his claws.

But fortunately, that didn't happen as someone else got in Bracer's way. The claws tore through flesh of the white lord and scorching his flesh. The whole slash followed down his left side of his body. Blood dripped from Axle's body as his eyes were closed and no sign of even pain was shown. Atlas saw the nasty wound on him and asked, **"Axle, are you alright?!"**

Bracer moved back from the white dragon, almost as if something was off that made him hesitant. The wound, despite its severity, didn't cause Axle to fall as he turned towards Bracer. **"Atlas, go and rest. I'll take over from here. After all-"** the lord said as a wicked smile came across his face. **"I have unfinished business with Spinx."** But she didn't move from her spot as she just watched him confront Bracer. Axle started to approach the red dragon, not really seeming to notice blood running down his side or even the pain from Bracer attack, if he could feel it. Besides the apathy to his own wound, Atlas noticed the bronze tint on his body and three claw marks on his right side. Something seemed off about Axle and she wondered if the blue drake had anything to do with it. Bracer jumped into the air and came crashing down on top of the white lord, making it seemed like he was crushed under Bracer's weight. But he was mistaken when Axle stood next to him in his human form. He jabbed with an open hand at the large dragon's eye before he could really recover from his own attack. Axle ripped it out, causing the dragon to roar in pain as blood splattered across Axle's face. His now wet hair covered his eyes. Bracer looked at the lord with hate and roared at him. He swiped his big talons at Axle, but three of those large talons went to the ground as Axle cut them clean with his crimson red dagger. Bracer howled and went to bite the lord as the "man" simply side-stepped him. Axle jabbed his dagger in the underside of the dragon's jaw, splitting open his bottom jaw. He followed it all the way to Bracer's throat and plunged the dagger into the dragon's neck. He tore it out the side of the neck. More blood covered the once white clothing and turned it red. Bracer slide across the ground when he missed Axle, not once, but twice now.

After having watched all that, Atlas realized that the drake had nothing to do with Axle's change in appearance and that he himself has used a spell to power himself up. _'Man, Axle's more incredible than I thought,'_ she thought with amazement.

**"Hey Atlas!"** the magi heard a certain lumina say. She looked around and saw Garin and Ohimia flying in the air towards Trident Mountain. The halfling's body was completely engulfed in hot flames. The rain seemed to be evaporating around the fiery as they never doused it out.

**"Ohimia, Garin!"** Atlas replied. She was glad to have them on her side for the fight. She went over to a safe spot where they could land without getting in the way of the fight. Only Ohimia landed next to the magi as Garin went to fight the legendary trio. Letting his anger burn, the halfling increased the size and strength of the flames, and then shot down at incredible speeds, aiming straight for Bothmas. The halfling drew his sword from its sheath and held it out in front of him, turning himself into a sharp, fiery missile as he shot himself towards the enemy dragon. The blade pierce though the drake's flesh, but not drawing blood as the drake seems to turn into a ghost at the last second. He turned to the newcomer and was prepared to fight.

Ohimia said, **"Atlas, we're here to help you beat Spinx. We're going to make him pay for killing Violet."** She glared with anger and the intent to avenge the vampire girl.

Atlas said, **"That's great and all, Ohimia. But I got to warn you. We're facing off against Bracer, Bothmas and Crea. You know? These guys from history, who are all powerful and stuff."**

The lumina's confidence started to falter upon hearing these names. **"Um..."** she started hesitantly. **"Well..."** Ohimia must be nervous and Atlas didn't blame her for that. The lumina, despite being trained, was still a newbie compared to the big shots like the legendary dragons as she lacked the experience for real combat. There was no doubt she would have trouble against them. But there was still someone else she could fight.

Atlas told her with a reassuring smile, **"Don't worry, you don't have to fight them. Axle and Garin's got them covered for us as far as I can tell."** They looked over at the "man" and the legendary trio to see how he was doing. She continued, **"We just need to take out Spinx and we'll be through with this battle."**

**"Okay then," **replied Ohimia. Axle stood against Bracer, as Atlas and Ohimia ran off behind the red dragon towards the necromancer. The magi took the lead as the lumina wouldn't know who he looked like until he saw him. Bracer saw the dragonesses and tried to go around Axle, even if he was in human form, but the "man" simply stood in his way. Bracer was annoyed by Axle being in his way and took a swipe at him to hit the lord directly with the center of his large paw, but Axle turned into his dragon form and jumped over the giant's paw. The white dragon turned in mid-air and tail-slapped him in the already cut face of Bracer. Bracer responded with his own tail slap following Axle's own force plus his own force. It hit the white across his jaw, sending him spiraling in the air and landing on his side as mud splattered all over the ground and over him. Axle staggered to his feet, but Bracer swiped under him, throwing him into the air from his underside and then slamming him into the ground. Axle felt the very fragile ribs break from that impact as he coughs up a large amount of blood. Bracer started to cast his fireball point blink, gathering a large amount of energy. Axle's eyes shut not from the pending the doom, but from the shear pain of his ribs all breaking as he could barely breathe anymore from one of his ribs piercing his lung.

When the dragonesses got to the necromancer, Atlas told her, **"You see that human in black? That's Spinx, let's get him!"** Ohimia charged at the necromancer as the magi cast light lasers that sped faster than the other dragoness.

Spinx saw the lasers coming at him as Crea stepped in front of them, blocking all the spells with her own barrier. Ohimia also failed in her attempt to bite the necromancer as she ran into the barrier and was bounced back with a cry, **"Ugh!"** She fell on her side as Spinx laughed, but he was caught off something was heard moving behind him, more like someone.

There was rattling of metal on rocks as the necromancer turned and saw Azera standing up from the tree. **"Don't you ever die,"** Spinx said in an annoyed tone. He drew his sword once again and went for a quick thrust, this time aiming for the other man's vital. But suddenly his sword shattered in his hand in the mid-jab, throwing the necromancer completely off as Azera swung his sword in a wide slash, cutting open his lower half of his chest, causing a lot of blood to spill from Spinx. Everything Spinx have summoned screeched, minus Crea, who kind of looked glad, started to dissipate. Spinx grabs hold of his chest with one arm to reduce the bleeding as much as he could. With his free hand's motion, he used his spell to throw a large bone spear at Azera hitting him square in the chest, this time sending the swordsman on the ground as Azera stopped moving. Before the beings Spinx summoned disappeared, he quickly re-summoned Eve under him and she took off in a sprint away from her master's enemies and disappeared in the forest. The seals used to summon Crea, Bracer, and Bothmas shattered as they all vanished from sight, but not before Bracer left Axle a new noticeable scar now across his body. The scorch marks on his side, shows that Bracer was using his fire spell to slowly burn away Axle's body as his whole right wing's webbing have been destroyed to the point of the lord no longer being able to fly for the time being.

With the battle being over, Ohimia went to go check on Azera, while Atlas saw Axle and the damaged condition he was in. He appeared to have suffered more than she thought he would and this made the magi frightfully worried for him. **"Axle!"** Atlas shouted as she ran over to him.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Sorry for the long wait. Lorddraco8967 was having problems with his computer that he wasn't able to log on and finish his posts on time. Anyway with this chapter out of the way, I can now get to work on chapter 48. Also, thanks for the compliment, Sachsm082. I'm glad you liked the story.

Tris, Bracer, Crea and Bothmas (c) Lorddraco8967


	49. Wounded Friends

**Chapter 48: Wounded Friends**

The storm had started to get worse on the way back to Sundown. Rain was pouring at the hardest rate that Kathia had seen in all her lifetime. Good thing the girl knew the bubble barrier spell or else she would have gotten soaked like a sponge and end up becoming sick. The girl was now almost home to Sundown as she saw the camp get bigger and bigger in her perspective as they went closer. She told the hunter's spirit, **"We're almost there. Let's just keep going."** This time, she ran even harder to make it to Sundown faster.

* * *

After Aeolus, Bam and Akil teleported to the lake, Doubloon looked at the horde leader urgently and said, **"Aeolus, I just heard from my people that the village is still under attack and this time by that gold dragon who brought the humans over to attack us."**

Aeolus said, **"How damning, I should have made the team check for Dracul's comrades. It looks like we'll have to send them back to intercept and capture Arch as well. But this time, he will not be here at this lake. We need another place to keep Arch there, for he will teleport Dracul away if we bring him here and he wakes up."**

Bam asked, **"So where can we send him?"**

Aeolus thought about the places he has been before and came upon one of the good places. He answered, **"I think I'll send him over to the power plant I was forced to slave at. After that, I'll have to get one of the magis to send flower pygmies to keep Arch asleep until we get to him."**

Soon, Juna, Mekarth and the cassares arrived. Like Akil, the lords did not look happy to have seen even a slumbering Dracul in front of them. The cassares circled the red dragon as their anti-magic field kept all from using any spells. With a bit of disgust in her voice, Juna asked, **"So Aeolus, what are you planning to do with this monster of a being?"**

The horde leader answered, **"Juna, I'm not sure if this applies to Shadow Wind. But in Solomos, when a dragon commits a crime, we charge him for his crimes and then give him his punishment. As you know, Dracul has done many terrible things in Shadow Wind and now recently, he has attacked Chief Doubloon's village, killed &amp; enslaved his people and kidnapped Atlas's nieces. We will also interrogate him on the whereabouts of those hatchlings. I suspect he has some means to keep us from teleporting right over to them."** If the bad guys kept his spies from warping over to Juna, then there was no doubt that the same thing would happen on this rescue attempt.

Jarilo looked at the horde leader questionably and asked, **"But can we really apply our laws to a foreigner? Especially when he's a monster as Juna calls him?"**

Aeolus replied, **"I understand how you feel, Jarilo. Killing him on the spot would be easy, but we must follow our continent's laws. Otherwise we may very well be just as cruel as Dracul here."**

Bam asked, **"Can't we just let Juna and Mekarth do the punishing? I mean Dracul is from Shadow Wind and so are they."** The navy blue figured that using Shadow Wind law in this case would be more appropriate since the lords being here mean that this was more of an affair related to them.

Doubloon said to Bam, **"I kind of agree with you, sir. But Dracul has also done terrible things to us Solomese dragons as well. So I feel we should be involved as well."**

Aeolus considered his cousin's and the chief's opinions, feeling that both were right, but he was leaning more towards Doubloon's suggestion.** "He's right, Bam. Also as long as we're in Solomos, we follow our laws. So we will punish Dracul according to Solomese law. Banishment will not be used this time as he had returned to Shadow Wind and ruined it. No doubt he'll bring ill will in this land as well. A permanent imprisonment in the form of a crystallized state in this continent will do much better."** Then he turned towards the sibling lords and asked, **"Juna, Mekarth, what do you think?"**

Juna, Mekarth and Akil all looked at each other and spoke in their native tongue, well Juna and Mekarth did, as Akil seemed to have slightly struggled with it a bit, but not very much. Dracul and Arch's names were thrown around a bit, until Akil's name was thrown in the mix. The messenger shut her mouth right then and there, and seemed a little pissed, but that was normal it seemed. After what seemed to be a bit of argument between the brother and the sister, with Dracul's name popping up like it was spring, ultimately it seemed Juna won that argument over Mekarth with what she said as the end. She explained to the horde leader, **"Aeolus, in Shadow Wind's law, he would already have been killed on spot. If he was captured, as he is now, he would still have been killed, either by being burned to death or beheaded. What it came down to was what country we were on, and what the laws are. We are foreigners, and it wouldn't be right of us to do our laws in a foreign country, as for how he have done crimes on this country as well. So therefore, he is held on your country laws."** But then she warned, **"But then it comes to the rank of which he hold in Shadow Wind, which could cause a full-out war with the city and this country, so really we can't do much to him without an army breathing down our backs. That would cause more lives to be lost and more power he would gain, because there is a very slim changes that you would win against a fully trained Shadow Wind army."** The dragoness was right, bringing the whole continent, even if the whole populace was a lot bigger than one city, into their affairs wasn't necessary. It was their war, not other dragons'. Mekarth and Akil stood behind her quietly. It seemed that she was not done yet though as she continued, **"Now this brings up the point about Atlas's nieces and your clanmates. There is very little we can do from here and Dracul's just not going to freely give them up or their location, even if we burn his damn eyes out and come close to killing him or leave him in extremely painful states."**

Realizing his objective had failed, Aeolus said, **"Then it looks like there's no point in keeping Dracul around or capturing Arch. We'll just have to send him somewhere else."** Looking to the magi cassare, he said, **"Yopple, send Dracul far away from here. Do not send him to any place the horde has been or he'll know we're responsible for his state."** The magi cassare obeyed and teleported Dracul to a destroyed city in Rudvich.

Bam asked, **"So what now? It looks like capturing him has been a waste of time."**

The horde leader answered, **"We're just going to have to rescue the villagers. But the question is... how?"** This problem was a difficult one indeed. It doesn't matter where the villagers end up, Arch has already seen them and will just teleport directly over to them. Killing another dragon would keep Arch from harming more, but as Aeolus and Juna said, it would break Solomese law and put the horde in danger with the army. The horde leader tried to think hard on coming up with a way save the village.

Just then, he heard someone talking to him telepathically, _'Aeolus, this is Eitri. I'm not sure if you've heard this already, but my village has just been attacked by-'_

The leader decided to save his subordinate the story by replying,_ 'Yes, Eitri. I've already heard about it. Uvanis told me everything from Dracul's assault to yours and the hatchling's capture.'_

_'Alright then,'_ replied the night magi. _'So anyway, after the prisoners and I were taken to Shadow Wind, a human, who served Axle, rescued me from the enemy and told me that Dracul's going to kill the rest of the villagers.'_

_'And I was alerted of that, too,' _said Aeolus. Then he told Eitri how the problem was handled and that they got Arch to deal with next. That was when the night magi had gone quiet. The horde leader imagined that he must be sighing in despair. He can easily sympathize with that as he would be just as unhappy or worse if his clan went through the same situation.

Eitri sighed unhappily,_ 'Bummer, so we can't do anything to the lords or we're all dead. That's terrible.'_ Then his voice lit a bit in relief as he continued, _'But at least you were able to save my people from one of them. I just hope we can all stay alive through this.'_

Aeolus replied,_ 'I hope so too, Eitri. It's really hard trying to figure out how we can keep your people safe for a long time. Dracul and his croonies can pull out any unimaginable trick at any time.'_

'Which is why we need to end this war as soon as possible. The longer we take, the more danger we and our loved ones will be in. Anyway, after we got to the hideout, Verona, that human, gave me rescue squad for me to save everyone with, but I figured we could use more dragons. That's why I contacted you, to see if you would spare us some of your soldiers.'

Even though, the horde hasn't received the training, Aeolus figured the squad's knowledge of the city's layout would prove beneficial for the horde. _'I will be glad to assist you. But first, tell me what kinds of soldiers your squadron has and how this rescue will go, and I'll send the right dragons over.'_

_'Okay, I will,' _said Eitri.

There was a pause of silence between the two as the night magi was apparently checking his squad to see what breeds the dragons were and what weapons the humans had. Soon, the night magi reported the information to his leader. Aeolus said,_ 'Sounds like the squad is being used for fighting. That makes them the perfect distraction while our magis and pygmies sneak in to rescue the captives. I'll get a few select dragons for this mission, you and the squad stay there until they arrive.'_

The night magi replied, _'Yes, Aeolus.'_ Then after a second, he said, _'Oh Aeolus, there's something I need to tell you.'_

_'What is it?'_ the horde leader asked.

Eitri answered,_ 'There was this man in blue armor, but he wasn't really human. He was a dragon lord in disguise. I think he has this ability to know where everyone is or something like that. That was how Dracul and Arch knew where the cave was when they came to us.'_

This new information Aeolus just heard made him think back to what happened this morning. That was when he realized something as he said, _'So that explains how that one human came to us this morning.'_

Not knowing what his leader was talking about, Eitri asked,_ 'One human?'_

Aeolus explained, _'He came here alone to get Juna, but left through teleportation after hurting Mekarth. But anyway, this is really bad news to us. Now Shadow Wind knows where we are at any time. They could easily get to us first before we do them and all because of that one lord with them.' _This was a very dire thing he learned. The Vulture Horde was now in a very vulnerable position unless they do something about that blue dragon lord.

The night magi understood his leader's feelings,_ 'I know. But Aeolus, I don't think that lord is a bad person. I heard he's being forced to fight alongside Dracul and Arch for some reason. Maybe they're keeping someone hostage or something.'_

The horde leader was a tiny bit relieved, but was still dreading over the fact of the blue lord's spying ability. _'So he's just a pawn then. I guess that makes our situation a tiny bit better since we can solve his problem if we knew what it is. Anyway, enough talk. Everyone's wondering why I'm silent. I need to speak with them right now. So wait for our help to arrive.'_

After the telepathic bond with Eitri ended, Aeolus formed a new one with Kekul and said to him, _'Kekul, I have another task for you. But first you must warp over to me.'_

The magma magi said, _'Yes, Aeolus.'_

After Kekul appeared before him, the disaster told him, **"I just got in contact with Eitri. One of Axle's followers rescued him and now he's over at their hideout where he's given a squad of dragons and humans to rescue the villagers and Atlas's nieces."**

Doubloon insisted to the horde leader, **"What about my village, Aeolus? I'm happy that I'm getting a few of my people back, but lives are at stake back there and that's more important than the prisoners."**

**"I know, Doubloon," **replied Aeolus. **"And I think I've finally got an idea on where to send them."** He just thought of a place where another group of soldiers will be able to protect them without getting the horde involved.

The village chief asked, **"Really where?"**

The disaster answered,** "We will be sending them off to the city of Windfall. They have warrior dragons there who can fight and protect. Your people will be safe there."** Should the crooks from Shadow Wind come for them, some fighting could cost the lives of not only the Aquarians, but also humans as well. It was a good tactic in eliminating enemies from both sides, or rather three if the humans didn't appreciate the egalitarian system.

Doubloon looked glad as he said,** "Thank you, Aeolus. You have once again saved us all. I think our village would make you the next chief should anything happen to me someday."**

Aeolus appreciated the praise and replied, **"I feel honored if that were to happen someday, but I would have to turn that down as I have recently found my clan."  
**  
The village chief asked, **"Oh, is that so?"**

Bam nodded and confirmed, **"Yep! And Aeolus is the chief now. He fought his cousin to earn that title fair and square."**

Doubloon smiled at the disaster and said, **"Wow, congratulations!"**

Aeolus said, **"Thanks chief, but enough talking. We need to get to saving your village now."** He looked to Kekul and the spring dragons and said, **"Kekul, change of plan. You and the spring dragons will go back to the village and teleport everyone over to Windfall."** Through telepathy, he added, _'And be sure to tell them to not mention to anyone in Windfall that the Vulture Horde sent them. Remember, the Aquarians have made themselves the enemy. They'll probably kick the villager out, thinking that they must be our spies.'_

Kekul and the springs nodded as the magi said, **"Got it."**

The leader ordered,** "Now go, save them."** With that, the team of three teleported back inside the village cave, where they captured Dracul. With the first team gone to save the village, Aeolus began to get the second team out to help Eitri. He told the magi cassare, **"Yopple, go over to Eitri and wait for me to send the other team there."  
**  
**"Got it," **Yopple said before he warped over to the night magi.

Then Aeolus formed a telepathic bond with Enamora and said to her, _'Enamora, I have a mission for you.'_

The magi asked, _'What is it?'_

The leader briefed her on how Eitri's situation and what he's going to do. After that, he told her, _'I need you to take Onslou, the black ghost dragons and flower pygmies with you for the rescue mission. Their abilities will make this mission easier. I have already sent Yopple to Eitri. He should be there waiting for you.'_

Enamora replied, _'Understood, I'll let them know what we're doing.'_

_'Good,'_ Aeolus said before he broke contact with her. After he turned back to the siblings, he noticed that they were looking back at him with troubled expressions on their faces. Juna's look was that look of thinking something bad was about to happen, while Mekarth looked confused. The leader wondered what was on their minds to make them feel this way. So he asked, **"What's wrong?"**

**"Nothing,"** Juna said, but the sound in her tone was that she was worried, but about what is questionable. Aeolus decided not to press the issue and instead just focus on the two things at hand: the rescue of the village and the rescue of the prisoners. He hoped the two groups sent to their respective missions would succeed with desirable results.

* * *

After reaching Axle's side, Atlas shrunk down into her human form to get a better look at his injuries, though her size was a little bit bigger than an average woman and her arm joints were more like that of a standing quadruped than a human's. This was due to her having rushed her spell out of anxiety and not putting enough concentration on her transformation. The "woman" knelt down in an awkward position and asked, **"Axle, are you okay? Do you need me to take you back to that healer dragon?"** Ohimia, who had turned her head behind her at the moment of Axle's name being shouted, had seen Atlas's transformation and was taken by surprised as her mouth dropped wide open.

Axle's breaths were very shallow and his wheezing was not a good sign. There was blood running down his burnt wing and blood coming from his mouth. He could not really speak with blood filling his mouth half the time so he telepathically told her, _'I live from these wounds, but I have broken ribs and a few of them pierced my lung, so it's rather hard to breathe. Also teleporting me around might make it worse because of the ground. Plus I still have something to do.'_ He started to push himself up, even though it was extremely painful for him, that much was evident as Atlas winced like she was feeling that pain.

The woman was about to tell him not to push himself up when she heard Ohimia say, **"Atlas, Axle, you two can turn into humans?"**

The woman looked behind herself at the lumina who appeared to be surprised by what she saw. Atlas knew that Ohimia hasn't seen any of them transform before, so she decided to tell the dragoness about it before she got the wrong idea. **"Yes Ohimia, we can. But we're not hybrids or anything. We just use this magic spell to transform ourselves into humans."**

The lumina was amazed by what she just heard and said, **"That's sounds cool! Can you teach me how to do it?"**

Atlas replied, **"I will, but not right now. We got to heal Axle first."** They can't continue on Trident Mountain like this and she mustn't waste any time, lest the dragon lord dies from blood loss. Looking from Garin to the lumina, she told them, **"You two watch over Axle for me. I'm going to get some help."** There was one dragon in mind she could think of right now and that was the healer dragon from the Vulture Horde.

Ohimia said after her, **"Okay, just don't take too long."** Atlas went away from Axle, so that her after spell clouds don't get into his injured lung before teleporting herself over to the healer.

* * *

Kathia had finally made it to Sundown, but when she got there, she saw a long-haired halfling woman with wings and tail of a dark myst pygmy carrying Azera's injured and unconscious body. The man had a bleeding hole in his chest. The redhead and the ghost were both shocked by what they thought the woman had done to the swordsman. Azera may have been rude the last time they saw him, but he didn't deserve to be attacked like that. Holding her purple dagger out at the halfling to stab and getting ready to zap her with some spells, Kathia yelled with all the fury in her voice, **"You! You wretched, vile half-breed! Did you do this to Azera? You're going to pay!"**

But just then, the spirit of the woman that Kathia sent out earlier came rushing over and tried to stop the girl, **"Kathia, wait!"**

The redhead turned her head to the female ghost, hoping that the spirit better had a good reason for trying to prevent Azera from being avenged. **"What?"** she asked.

The ghost woman told her, **"This creature here is the same girl you've sent me to look after."**

**"What?!" **Kathia cried out in a disbelieving surprise. But how can this be? She refused to believe that this halfling was the same child who was always at Azera's side. Children don't grow up this fast. Sure the creature may have the same type of shirt, the same hair color and the same skin color... But was that just a coincidence? After noticing the similarities between the two and how the ghost woman had been following the halfling, Kathia realized that this was indeed the same girl. The teen's eyes widen with shock and she said to the halfling in a racist disgust, **"No way, you were a halfling all along?"**

The woman look up at Kathia, but not making eye contact. She looked back at Azera and kind of sighed before she got up from the ground. **"To be honest with you, I still don't know what I am. All I know is it linked to him, and I only figured that out recently when my form changed on its own, and some of my memory came back. The only thing I remember is what connects us is called a soul bound spell. I don't know when it was done or who casted it on us. All I know is that our fates are linked and our lives chained together, where if one parish so does the other,"** she said as she start to walk past the girl. **"I entrust his well being in your hands, but I will keep watch,"** she said as she found a nearby tree and went up inside it.

Kathia looked back to Azera, who was now lying on the ground. The halfling did say that their souls were linked together and that they literally can't live without the other. So if Azera dies, then so does the halfling and vice versa. Kathia's goal was to kill all dragons, but can she really take the life of someone she didn't know what she truly was? The girl would have to ask Azera everything about the woman who saved him, but only once he was awake. Kathia lifted the man up and carried him on her back like she did when she was taking him to the girl-now-halfling earlier. She made her way to her tent where she would let him rest at for the time being. She noticed the camp seemed to be devoid of life outdoors, and that was because the people had to shut themselves in their tents from the heavy rainstorm. The girl thought that she was the only one out here until she heard someone calling to her, **"Kathia? Is that you?"**

The girl looked up and found a guard who was at the now completely-built watchtower. Remembering the plan she had to make herself look strong, Kathia put up a triumphant face and said, **"Yep! I'm back in one piece."**

The guard smiled and said, **"That's great! We should tell everybody the good news once the rain stops." **Then he looked to Azera and asked, **"Who's this you got on your back?"**

Kathia answered, **"That's Azera. He's hurt and I need to take him over to my tent to heal. So no time to stop and talk. He's needs help now."**

The guard replied, **"Okay, I understand. I hope he gets better soon."** With the conversation over, Kathia resumed her path to her tent until she finally made it there. She unzipped the tent and went inside. The girl placed Azera on top of her sleeping bag and began to use her healing magic on his chest wound first before fixing the other wounds.

* * *

The dragons of the Vulture Horde were individually laying out in the sun or staying in the cool shade of the caves. As they were busy having their conversations, Atlas teleported right next to Hewey, who jumped up in surprise. The others who were inside one of the caves with him were just as surprised by the sudden entrance of the "human". The new recruits of the horde, who never saw Atlas's human form, were alarmed by what they thought to be a bad guy. Lythnara said, **"Oh gosh, it's a human!"**

One of the cassares growled, **"It must be in the same league as that human from before. Let's kill it!"**

The recruits got up to get ready to attack the intruder. Atlas knew the danger she was in and had to speak to them quickly. **"Hey wait, I'm just a-"** Before she could say another one, the dragons, who already knew her, were very fast to hold their comrades back from harming her.

Hewey told the recruits, **"Hold up guys, this one here doesn't work for Dracul."**

Sunburn, who had two dragons holding onto his wings with their jaws, asked, **"She doesn't? Then who does she work for?"**

**"Axle," **the healer told him. **"She's a dragoness in disguise; she made herself look that way."**

**"Oh..." **said all the recruits as they relaxed their tensions and lied back down as their restrainers let them go.

Glad that there didn't need to be any fighting to defend herself, Atlas thought to herself, _'I need to try to remember to always come here as a dragon.'_ If she did that every time she needed to come to the horde, there wouldn't be any surprises or alarms from any of the dragons. Looking to the healer dragon, she said, **"Hewey, I need your help again."**

Hewey, knowing what she was going to say, assumed,** "Let me guess, it's Axle again, right?"**

Atlas nodded and said, **"Yes, he's got broken ribs now and one of them pierced his lung."**

The healer shook his head, **"Oh boy, this won't do. I can't just use healing magic on him, the lung's tissue will just close around the rib and he'll be stuck like this. I'll have to cut his chest open and get the rib out of the lung before I can heal him."**

**"What?!" **the woman cried in appall. Axle was already hurt badly from the battle he went through. Can he survive another devastating damage while losing blood like he is now? She can imagine the agony he'll feel when Hewey tears his chest apart with his claw. That was certainly not a nice way to go about being healed. **"That's crazy! He's hurting like hell right now and you're just going to put him in further pain?"**

Hewey assured, **"Don't worry; there won't be any pain if I have a flower pygmy to put him to sleep with. I'll call one over now."** Atlas watched in silence as he formed a telepathic bond with one of the flower pygmies. His face soon had the look of discontent, which made the woman wonder what was bad going on. After a few seconds, the healer told her the bad news, **"I'm sorry Atlas, but it looks like all the flower pygmies are out on a mission to save some prisoners."**

The woman was dismayed as she said,** "Damn it! Of all the fucking times, this had to happen." **Although it was a good thing that she was getting her nieces back, she just wished that they could have kept at least 1 flower pygmy behind for Axle's sake.

**"Well do you know any sleep spells?"**

**"No I don't," **Atlas answered. There were some spells that she and every other magi dragon shared, and then there were those she had yet to learn.

Hewey said, **"Then I guess we're just going to have to work on Axle the hard way. Come on, we should get back to him quickly."** Atlas let out a quiet sigh of surrender, feeling that there was nothing else to reduce her friend's pain. She teleported herself and Hewey back to Axle.

Once they rejoined the others, Atlas asked her new friends, **"Guys, I'm back. Anything happened while I was gone?"**

**"Not much," **Ohimia answered. **"The man who helped us out suddenly disappeared on us. We don't know where he went."**

**"I see," **said Atlas as she could find no trace of the swordsman.

Hewey looked around for the white dragon, or at least his human form, but didn't see him anywhere. He asked, **"So where's Axle?"**

Ohimia looked to where Axle was as she answered, **"He's right over-"** She stopped talking when she found to her surprise an empty spot instead. **"Huh?! That can't be! He's right her a few seconds ago."**

Atlas looked around for her friend in worry, but he was nowhere in sight. She said, **"Damn it, he must have left without us. I don't think he could have gone too far. Let's go look for him."** The dragons and halfling went to search for Axle.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Will Atlas's group find Axle on time? And will Aeolus's deployed teams be successful in their missions? Find out in the next chapter or two.

Massiva (c) Lorddraco8967


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